A recent article published in the Wall Street Journal was a great example of how FLA is working to ensure the right narrative is being told about forest landowners managing their land for the nation’s domestic timber supply and their need to be economically viable to be able to continue to provide essential environmental services for solving our country’s most pressing needs of clean air and water. The article by Ryan Dezember, profiles and quotes several FLA members. Published on February 25, the article received more than 450 responses.
FLA CEO, Scott Jones response to the Wall Street Journal article
The recent article “Lumber Prices are Soaring. Why are Tree Growers Miserable?” highlights how it’s hard to see the forests these days for the lumber.
Lumber markets have responded to the oversupply created by privately owned forests across the Southeast by adding capacity and making capital improvements, but it appears landowners have become their own worst enemy in the lack of correlation in lumber and timber prices.
Participating in federal programs to plant more trees and trusting that the market for timber products would increase has led to a greater supply of forests than we have seen in more than 50 years. Now, these landowners are stuck watching lifelong investments slowly sour and desperately searching for a solution that will instill confidence in making timber investments in these lands for future generations.
Without vibrant markets for timber, forest landowners find themselves forced to wait until prices recover or take a loss on the harvest by selling at depressed market prices. These discouraging options lead many forest owners, including the landowners profiled in the article, to consider other uses for their tracts of land. Given the immense public benefits that private forestlands provide to society, we should all root for their sustainability.
The one thing sawmills and timber growers can agree on is that we all want healthy forests and a healthy environment. So, we must work together to create assurances for timber growers to continue managing their lands as forests. Lines of communications with existing mills and enhancement of emerging markets such as carbon sequestration in the forests will be a positive first step to instilling confidence and sustaining timber growers.
Finding solutions will not be quick or easy, but when it comes to the future of rural economies and the environment across the South it’s essential. We all enjoy the benefits of healthy forests from the products that make our lives better to clean air, water, and wildlife habitat, and no one wants that more than the family that owns and manages that land. By ensuring these landowners have healthy markets for their products, we can help ensure their sustainability for generations to come and from that, we will all benefit.
I am a forest owner—we are tired of being taken advantage of, and not receiving fair compensation for our wood—lets figure out how to react to these Canadian Co’s. This has gone on long enough—let figure out how to react—Politically—hold out on selling ( I know this is a challenge for some small owners, but maybe we could find a market for them temporarily)–surely we can come up with options—if they cannot buy enough wood to operate we could show that their way of doing business works two ways—are there alternatives in the state, and/or Fed, govt. through which we could put pressure on these wood yards.
Gary Yawn—second comment—we could consider a co-operative plant that we owned, and/or more than one—we could possibly get a domestic Co. to work with us, and/or buy an old plant site & rehabilitate (or get someone else to do this with our help &/govt. help)
In Dodge Co. just above McRae on the Golden Isle Parkway, is an old Ga. Pacific wood plant that is closed—this is a possibly for rehab. We are fools if we don’t do something.
Gary, This a good idea but I would shy away from any govt. intervention or cooperation lest they hit us with some anti trust measure or collusion. Not sure tree farmers with saw logs to harvest could make enough of a difference (the volume we could collectively combine) to affect prices. There might be a way to sell our saw timber to local sawmills and then buy it back (or just pay for the conversion to lumber), then store it ourselves in a warehouse as you suggest for later sales. But how much would we have to cut and store to make a difference? Then there is the rental cost of the warehouse, transportation in and out, etc. Even so, this would work only until the sawmills caught on what we were doing! I still don’t see a solution, unless you could get 10,000 southern tree farmers to agree to hold back timber sales.
At every meeting of forest landowners the term “Canadian Mafia” seems to be entering the vernacular. May it is time for a serious look at price fixing in the wholesale timber pricing process.
I have a tract of 130 acres about 50 miles south of Richmond, VA. It has been thinned once ten years ago, with the remaining loblollies about 35 years old, some nice sawtimber. My fellow foresters tell me I might as well sell them for pulpwood or chipNsaw, because sawtimber prices are not coming back any time soon. I can let them grow a few more years but this is aggravating to be in this situation when the WSJ article says log prices, adjusted fr inflation are at their lowest level in more than 50 years. Somebody is making a loy of money and it is not us, the tree growers.
Hopefully the higher lumber prices hold, and more mills will be built. Without more demand from mills, there is little hope for better prices. I never dreamed that prices would be half what they were 25 years ago when I bought my timberland.
I realize my comment will be considered as blasphemy from many landowners, but the single most important driver of low timber prices is government subsidies and government/non-profit outreach programs. We (our industry) encourage reforestation (and now renamed restoration) by subsidizing the costs of site prep, seedlings, and planting. We have hundreds of county foresters, extension agents, game commission agents, and pro-forestry non-profits whose sole mission is outreach and to encourage tree planting. It is easy to correlate major cost sharing programs with their associated harvest levels 20 years later. As the timber supply increases, stumpage will decrease. I don’t blame the mills for low prices. Why should the mills pay higher timber prices when there is so much timber on the market that is a direct result from cost sharing?
If you calculate the number of 2x4s in one long log and what that number of boards would cost in the retail store versus what you are being paid by the ton price for that log, how does that compare? I recently had a contractor in my home for renovation and he advised that not only was lumber hard to get, it was extremely pricey. I live in an area that is experiencing high growth and much new construction, yet timber prices are so low I won’t sell. The local lumber mill near me is sending lumber out with squirrels on it. There is no “abundance”.
My family farm is 175 years old and divested down to 350 acres. Taxes, even with conservation covenant relief, are just to high for what the counties provide which is practically nothing but grading three dirt roads, two of which have no residences, once in a while. Not to mention the prohibition of logging activity in wet weather on roads that see mainly farm equipment and logging equipment as traffic. The counties complain about having to grade the roads to fix the heavy equipment traffic “damage” when that is the only “benefit of paying taxes. Oh, and since 2014 it has been exceptionally wet.
No “Association” I have been a member of offers any voice for small land owners but everyone wants to keep land forested. I have sympathy for families selling timber for low prices just to pay taxes.
I have re-read Scott Jones’ reply above again, and he ends by saying: “By ensuring these landowners have healthy markets for their products, we can help ensure their sustainability for generations to come and from that, we will all benefit.” That is obvious, but we can’t force markets under a capitalistic system. For those of us with trees in the ground, that is not an answer, or certainly not a solution for the next 10 years when our sawtimber-sized trees are more prone to bark beetles, ice storms, etc. I was the executive director for the Virginia Forestry Association for 25 years until 1994, and our overt mission was to encourage landowners to “Plant More Trees.” We had many educational programs for school kids and even got passed a new Virginia law (1970) that provided for state cost-sharing for planting and replanting pine forests. Hard to imagine we are now “suffering” from an abundance. Doubtful to me the public is willing to subsidize continued forestland for clean air, clean water, carbon sequestration, etc. WE know this is true, but it might be a stretch for “the public” to connect the dots, much less our elected politicians. Only by a majority of landowners in a region holding back timber sales can we affect price, but then run the risk of being charged with anti-trust lawsuits.