With three new wood products mills coming to South Carolina within the next two years and an announcement of a fourth mill expected soon, the Palmetto State needs increased tree planting to support its growing timber industry.
Grant Forest Products, an industry leader in the manufacture of wood-panel products, is opening two of the biggest mills in North America in Allendale and Clarendon counties, and Tech-Wood, a Dutch manufacturer of wood-composite materials, is set to open a mill in Greenwood County.
The South Carolina Forestry Commission recruited Forest2Market (F2M), a Charlotte-based provider of raw material pricing data for the forest products industry, to calculate the return on investment for landowners who plant trees for future forest products. Acting as a neutral third party, F2M's data and analysis showed landowners that there will be a market for their timber and that investment in timber is profitable now and most likely will be profitable in the future.
“Our timber pricing data supports South Carolina’s landowner initiative to plant more trees – it’s a win-win situation for landowners and the forest product manufacturers moving to South Carolina,” said Pete Stewart, president and founder of F2M.
SCFC hopes the campaign, dubbed Grow Some Green, will boost the number of acres of trees planted in the state, which slipped from 150,000 acres in the late 1990s to 75,000 acres in 2005.
“South Carolina’s tree-planting rate has dropped 55 percent since 2000 and our pulpwood supply could decline until 2020 if we don’t begin to plant additional trees now,” said Tim Adams, resource development forester with the SCFC. “The timber industry is a boon for the state, but we need to act now in order to sustain it.”
According to Adams, planting trees now means that jobs and revenue created by forest products industry manufacturers in South Carolina will stay in the state, but waiting too long could drive companies elsewhere.
Suz-Anne Kinney: +1 980 233 4021 or suz-anne.kinney@forest2market.com
