According to an independent study commissioned by Beef + Lamb New Zealand in 2017, 3,965 hectares of entire sheep and beef farms were sold into forestry. This jumped to 20,000 hectares in 2018 and 36,000 in 2019. Only the dampening impacts and uncertainty of COVID saw a decrease to 25,000 of farmland sold for forestry in 2020. It's now 14,000 hectares in the first six months of last year. 