Feeding America's insatiable appetite for lumber

[red]

I just read a news article called . . Feeding America's insatiable appetite for lumber . . from WBUR.org . . May 08, 2025 Transcript 
By Will Walkey and Meghna Chakrabarti

I found it very interesting I would appreciate it if someone could post a link 
The introduction says
The Trump administration wants to expand the American lumber industry by logging more trees in national forests and raising tariffs on lumber imports.  The impact that could have on the domestic timber industry. 

[rusticretreater]

https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2025/05/08/trump-lumber-industry-timber-forest-tariffs

Lots of great viewpoints and information in there.

[TreefarmerNN]

Interesting conversation.  One clear point that many people miss is that timber processing is very local.  We're feeling that here- one of our highest volume mills is currently in bankruptcy and shut down.  That killed the local pine market, which impacted not only the mill workers but landowners, loggers, truckers, forest consultants and the people who furnished parts and services to the whole group.  The mill itself was profitable but the ownership group had troubles elsewhere which sucked up all the cash flow, eventually taking the whole business down.

[customsawyer]

I don't see much point in wasting energy on something I have no control over. Granted it's wise to keep your eyes open so you can see what's coming. A good bit of the SYP mills in GA. are now owned by Canada. So the tariffs won't effect that production much. Having the tariffs still in the negotiation stage, makes it a little early to start reacting. Matter of fact I heard they changed some this weekend. All of this has happened in less than five months in office. No telling what will happen in the next five months or four years. 
I sure wouldn't mind hearing what Ole Danny had to say about it.  

[nativewolf]

Currently in the west, the supply chain is fully loaded. Adding more capacity will necessitate adding more mil capacity and more Logging capacity. In addition, Mills must have market for the residuals. Furthermore, Fire treatment will be creating large amounts of unmerchantable material. Summary the supply chain is already stretched, adding more capacity in terms Of timber will only serve to depress the prices for landholders and not increase wood production significantly. An example of the challenge a new mill faces is that in the south they will require 1200 loads of logs per day and that would mean 3 to 400 trucks to supply the mill and 200 to truck lumber and residuals. It is very hard to find 500 truck drivers into today's market. This is the exact problem facing Roseburg's new mill in North Carolina. They're having difficulty scaling and trucking is just one problem. 

In Virginia, our last plywood mill closed last week. This will cause significant short-term disruption in pine pricing within 100 miles of the mill. Loggers and mills that bid on timber assuming they had high value market for butt logs Will be disappointed and will lose several hundred dollars per acre. This could drive some loggers out of business.

A greater concern for the southern yellow pine market is the new Weyerhaeuser mill in Arkansas. This mill will run on short rotation Pine and compete directly with dimensional lumber with a fiber timber product.  This manufactured product will be stronger and reduce overall consumption of high-quality dimensional lumber. This company is a very savvy lumber producer, and this is their first new mill in decades.  The price for the mill is estimated to be 500 million; financial calculations would show that they plan to replace the output of many dimensional mills from this one location.  In short, one investment, such as this will have more impact on market than either the Trump tariffs or opening new land for harvesting.

[doc henderson]

Thanks for the insight for us hobby folks.

[barbender]

We used to have more capacity in those areas out west, Wyatt. There have been a number of factors that have led to the constriction of that capacity, many of them mandated or facilitated by the Federal government, and I'm all for turning that around. 

The areas Im familiar with in the Mountain West are now on board with some harvests as people are sick of seeing the mountains go up in smoke, but there is no where to send the wood. All the mills closed over the last 20 years, and the primary factor was lack of available timber from Federal forest lands. 

[nativewolf]

I agree barbender.  However until the mills are back up more timber will only serve to stress timber sellers.   More innovative contracts needed to guarantee sales pipelines before I would touch mill investment that relies on one timber  seller.

[Otis1]

I'm gonna throw my 0.02 cents in and agree that it would be great if we could increase production but the mill capacity isn't there. There is obviously so many different wood products that vary by region. For example, we can't sell even the nicest white cedar logs here   .  I know the Forest Products Lab is working on new avenues including the cross laminated timbers (I think that's what its called).


In central and northern Wisconsin the hardwood pulp market allows us to manage stands that don't have the quality or size to make sawlogs; I think a lot of the current degraded stands we have are still the result of the cutover 100 years ago. 99% of what I mark is just getting rid of suppressed crap. In a lot of places including southern Wisconsin that is TSI that someone has to pay for. 

[barbender]

I guess the point I'm getting at, is that we never will have mill capacity if we don't release timber resources to the market. Obviously it will take time for that capacity to come online, if it ever does. But if we never make timber available for harvest, then there is a 0% chance of any infrastructure happening. 

[customsawyer]

Last I checked the pine 2x market is still in bad shape. Most mills are running at reduced capacity. Where is the market for this extra timber? There's mill closures all over the country. I doubt that there's much interest in opening a mill, and depending on the gov. not to yank the rug out from under you in 5 or 10 years.

[TreefarmerNN]

I guess the point I'm getting at, is that we never will have mill capacity if we don't release timber resources to the market. Obviously it will take time for that capacity to come online, if it ever does. But if we never make timber available for harvest, then there is a 0% chance of any infrastructure happening.

Way different conditions exist between the western US and the SE US.  Much of the timber in the western US is on federal land, either BLM or Forest Service while the SE US is mostly private land.  Timber growth in the SE has outpaced harvest for years so there's a surplus of pine timber available, while the western timber harvest has been artificially limited for various social reasons.  Throw in limitations on Canadian harvest and things get even more cloudy.  Then add changes in how timber can be used, CLT, mass timber construction etc. and things get murky indeed. 

Ultimately, I have to think timber production will be a good thing in the future.  It's a renewable product with both good engineering and aesthetic properties plus it absorbs CO2 and releases oxygen when growing, provides wildlife habitat and helps allow water to soak into the ground rather than running off and eroding land.  It's value is truly multi-use but too often there's been conflict by various groups that only see one use as the overwhelming need. The pendulum swung from over harvest and move on, to a mix of cut and plant managed pine/spruce, to not enough harvest and mega-fires.  Hopefully, we've learned to follow nature instead of overwhelming it.  If we have learned, in the future there will be some equilibrium of multi-use growth, harvest and social uses.

If I didn't have some faith in future utility, I should sell my timber land and walk away.  I won't live long enough to see how it all turns out, but my kids and grandkids will.  Hopefully they will have the same faith that I do.

[Ron Wenrich]

I thought part of the argument is that Canada is subsidizing the timber industry.  That brought in more mill capacity and timber was cheaper for the mills.

The rise in tariffs would level out the playing field.  But, the release of more timber would result in cheaper timber.  Wouldn't it bring costs down and make investment more attractive?   There's a time lag between investment and market availability. 

The biggest problem to investment is the stability of the US govt.  We keep floating from one policy to another.  How soon will it be until an administration tightens up on timber availability? 

[Plankton]

Im not up to date on the timber industry out west other then hearing about lots of logging being shut down by various enviromental groups and politics. Sad state of affairs but cant comment on it.

However around here in new england we already log state land quite often and the issues with the industry isnt really a lack of wood to cut. Nothing wrong with more land availible imo but I dont know anyone around here who doesnt have wood bought or to move onto for 2 years. Losing export market overseas and trade issues with canada has a much more direct effect on daily operations.

As others have said more wood availible to cut doesnt mean more will be if theres nowhere to send it anyways.

[RPF2509]

Some really good points made here.  Out west there is a shortage of everything except dead standing timber.  It will take time to have any new direction take effect.  There is not enough mill capacity to process more timber and no one will risk building a new mill without a clear supply.  As a private land manager with slim margins, more cheap federal timber will make it harder to profit.  The logging infrastructure is at capacity with a need for trucks and loggers.  Any major fire immediately swamps the logging and mill capacity shutting out the green wood.  Certain areas have no infrastructure so finding a home for the logs makes for tough decisions.  I have personally seen decks of 48"+ logs burned because there is no home for the wood.  Add to that the enormous amount of submerchantable wood growing in the national forests with no market and there is a long way to go to make the forests fire safe and healthy.  Tree mortality from overstocking is extending north ward.  There are lots of promises but few groundbreaking events.  Paradise and LA are not even close to being rebuilt and I still see trainloads of out of state lumber coming south so the demand is there.  It will be decades until meaningful progress is made on federal lands no matter who is in charge.

[nativewolf]

I thought part of the argument is that Canada is subsidizing the timber industry.  That brought in more mill capacity and timber was cheaper for the mills.

The rise in tariffs would level out the playing field.  But, the release of more timber would result in cheaper timber.  Wouldn't it bring costs down and make investment more attractive?  There's a time lag between investment and market availability. 

The biggest problem to investment is the stability of the US govt.  We keep floating from one policy to another.  How soon will it be until an administration tightens up on timber availability? 

Yes but there is already an effective 35% tariff on Canadian lumber and trade commission might even bump that a bit.  This has been in place since Clinton.  Yet we still import lumber and that is neither good nor bad.  

Can we sustainably manage the west lands better?  I hope so but I would not invest in hope of that.  

The new mills in the SE are getting planned in the lowest cost of production regions with lowest wages.  TIMO pine stumpage rates are the same today as 2008.  That is despite inflation moving at a decent clip the last 8 years.  Opportunities and challenges for sure.  

[Ianab]

Can we sustainably manage the west lands better?  I hope so but I would not invest in hope of that. 

That is probably the biggest issue. Forestry is a LONG term project. It needs consistent long term policies in place, not just some decree that can be reversed next week, or challenged in court, or will quite likely change after the next election.

Setting up a large scale sawmill operation takes years, millions of $$, and many more years for it it replay that investment. Same with planting a forest, 30-50 years down the track you have trees to harvest, will there be a mill / market?

If lumber from Canada etc attracts a large tariff, then the math will look good for building a new mill. BUT will the tariffs still be in place in 5 years when the mill is actually operating? Will they still be in place next week? Is the supply of logs from Govt owned land secure in the long term?

So many "Maybes" that it's not a safe investment.

Of course it's possible for the US to improve it's timber industry, you have the most important resource, lots of land to grow trees on. Yet the US currently only produces ~70% of the lumber it needs. Hence the imports from Canada, and even NZ.

I've attached am interesting PDF that maps out the NZ pine forest industry and the various steps / inputs / interconnects that are involved. Simply opening one tap on the diagram doesn't make the whole system work better (possibly the opposite?). 

54379-New-Zealand-forestry-and-wood-supply-chain-Pinus-radiata-v2.pdf

[TreefarmerNN]

A couple of other factors go in the mix.  Historically, builders have used fir and spruce for framing.  It was plentiful, relatively inexpensive and good lumber.  Southern pine was heavier and not quite as nice to work with once the long leaf was gone.  So culturally builders and homeowners looked for western wood even when it had to be shipped across the country.  Plus a lot of population growth was in the west with California's growing population requiring a lot of new homes.

Now the population growth is in the south and the timber growth is also there.  So if the cultural bias toward western timber is overcome either by price or the use of manufactured lumber like CLT, supply and demand will better match if the mill capacity is there.  Transportation costs are also an issue with lumber being relatively bulky for dollar of value so the closer the supply is to the demand, the less that factors in. 

And as we all know, mills have changed over time as well.  Millions of board feet of lumber were cut with low technology mills using relatively unskilled labor except for the sawyer.  Most communities in rural areas had one or more mill.  Now even smaller mills utilize scanning, automated log handling and sorting, high speed breakdown mills and multiple saw resaws, scanning for lumber grading and sorting and comparatively fewer employees per unit of output.  But those employees need a higher level of skill and consequently earn higher pay.  Mill down time doesn't cost hundreds of dollars/hour but thousands or tens of thousands and there's less redundancy in personnel.  So if two or three employees in critical positions don't show up it's a real problem, not just an annoyance.

The only new mills in our area are Amish and they are fairly low volume mills.  But they bypass the employee issues.  The workers will show up because they are all family.  They aren't producing high volume and aren't trying to satisfy stockholders.  Much of their product is being sold locally, either direct to the end user or to a kiln/planer operator who used to run a mill.  And to some extent, they are vertically integrated as the employees who run the mill are also builders so they can cut their own timber, mill it and then use it.  It's an interesting example of going back to the future but depends on the unique Amish/Mennonite culture. And it would take 50 or more of those mills to utilize as much timber as the now shut down high volume mill.

[barbender]

 So, are you guys saying we shouldn't even bother? 

[Ianab]

So, are you guys saying we shouldn't even bother?

No, you should try, things can be improved. Just if it was easy, it would have been done already. It's taken over 100 years to get the NZ forest industry to where it is now, and even then there are still bumps in the road, many that are outside local control. 

[Otis1]

I think in northern Wisconsin, most of our production has been geared towards hardwood pulp for paper for so long that it's hard to separate from that and also small private landowner's who could previously sell pulp might now have to start paying for TSI in order to grow sawlogs. Having to pay or at least getting paid way less to remove something that was previously a commodity is a big hurdle. 

Problem is paper usage demand so we need to find new ways to use the products we have. I think we should try to use our own wood products obviously but the market has to be there, that's why we need new ideas and technologies. of course, I'm speaking about this region, I know a lot of the discussion is focused on western states and lumber.

[TreefarmerNN]

Potential uses are coming on line but not fast enough to keep up with timber growth.
Biochar- lots of uses and some new machines make the process essential carbon negative.
Wood fuels- traditional types like firewood but now pellets and jet fuels.
Engineered timbers- call it plywood plus.
Lots of laboratory work with lignin to make some really interesting products.

I've got some soil that could really use biochar.  Unfortunately there's not a plant close enough to make it economical to truck.

[Ianab]

small private landowner's who could previously sell pulp might now have to start paying for TSI in order to grow sawlogs. Having to pay or at least getting paid way less to remove something that was previously a commodity is a big hurdle. 

Yeah, that tradition thing would take some long term effort / incentives to overcome. Locally it's not such an issue as Native Forest is legally protected. You can log privately owned forest on a very limited scale, but that's maybe 1% of total production. A local guy was harvesting Rimu of his ~1,000 acres of bush, and cutting 3 or 4 trees a year. It paid pretty well, even after hiring a chopper to lift the wood out. 

The other 99 % is planted exotic trees. So at that point you have to physically plant the tree, then do the pruning / thinning (like TSI) before things settle down and you leave the final crop trees to mature. You can DIY this on a small scale, or hire a crew for a larger block. 

The US style mixed age forestry doesn't work with the NZ Native trees as they are so slow to mature, 200-400 years for the good timber species like Kauri, Tawa and Rimu, and they are extra slow to regenerate after a clear cut. So the standard is that you invest in plantation Radiata Pine or Doug Fir on land that's otherwise marginal for farming. Those can be thousands of acres, or that dirty 10 acre gully down the back of the farm. As long as you have enough trees for a small logging operation to move in and harvest, there is that steady market for pine logs. Local use or export, the market / distribution system is in place, and the smaller operators just slot into the system. The Chinese don't care where the logs came from, just get them to the port ready to load. 

[Kodiakmac]

Over the last 30 years the number one mill-killer in Ontario has been the cost of regulatory compliance.  A never-ending barrage of Labour, Health and Safety, and environmental legislation - federal, provincial, and municipal - that work hand-in-hand to achieve one apparent goal: an absolute prohibition on tree-cutting.  

[nativewolf]

The issue in the USA is even more interesting when you consider we export lots of logs and lumber.  In fact we were a net exporter of lumber in the 2000s until 2016.  By 2017 china sales were plunging and companies such as Weyerhaeuser and Rayonier tried to export logs.  At one point rayonier did 300 containers a month from one facility.  Just a few months ago Weyerhaeuser shipped a barge to India from Mobile AL with loblolly, flooded the market for a bit.  India is poking around the USA for lumber /logs.  

Mostly I feel we should remove all the tariffs and let the free market decide.  If Canada wants to dump lumber in USA that is silly on Canada part and I would take the subsidized wood.  

They will run out and run out of money subsidizing logging and mills.  However this is likely too late.  Canada is probably making  plans for reducing sales to USA and will look to dump lumber in our export markets such as Mexico and the Caribbean and now India.  As net exporters we are a bit hypocritical to complain about imports from our neighbors.