A Better Way

Here is a one in a million – a perfect log, the best of the best.  Toppled in a windstorm, I salvaged this dead White Oak tree and am about to make a lot of money from the windfall opportunity.

This log measures 20 inches diameter inside the bark on the small end and 8 feet long.  Using the Scribner log scale the volume is about 140 board feet of lumber.   (The upper logs of this tree contained another 360 board feet.)

Every other person in the timber industry would sell this as a veneer log that would be shipped to the far East.  This truck load of similar White Oak logs recently passed through Spring Green on the way to the container loading yard, last stop before being processed in China.  These logs are sliced paper thin and the veneer applied to cheap base material like rubberwood plywood for “engineered” flooring or particle board for flimsy furniture, producing cheap products that soon end up in the landfill.

The commercial value of logs like these white oak veneer logs - the best of the best – is about $1 per board foot for the timber grower.  The export season for logs is winter, due to wood fungus growth in warm summer months, so markets are limited for the next 5 months.  The commercial value of my perfect log is about $140.  The upper logs of this tree were quite knotty so they were saw logs or tie logs, adding another $80 in value to this large good quality tree.  Few forest owners ever earn $220 from their best trees, this tree is very unusual. 

In the commercial markets, the timber grower gets a small payment, never enough to consider forest management a profitable and manageable crop, even when selling veneer quality trees.  A logger likely would make $75 for felling and skidding the tree to the roadside landing.  Truckers would earn another $100 or so from this tree until the container load leaves Wisconsin.  Local log buyers and brokers make money, though that profit would be secret business information.   Guess how much the distant big corporations make….!?

I will earn at least $5,000 selling flooring and other products from this tree and keep nearly all of the money in the local economy.  In our business system, the upper knotty logs of this tree have about the same high value as this one perfect log.  The small knotty and crooked cherry logs and the elm tree also toppled in this windstorm will earn similar high value.  Our character grade custom blended hardwood flooring earns us about $10 per board foot for all dense hardwoods on our farm.

This perfect log and the upper knotty logs will be quartersawn to get the best value boards.  The lumber will be dried with naturally accelerated wind power and the sun’s heat - in our Solar Cycle Lumber dry kilns.  The clear boards will likely be made into higher value products than flooring. 

We make cutting boards, cheese boards, signs and plaques that can earn us $20+ per board foot.
We make kitchen cabinets and doors that earn us $30+ per board foot.
We make wooden countertops, stairways, and furniture that bring in $50+ per board foot.
We make specialty products and pieces of art that earn over $100 per board foot.

Our government and Universities support the commercial timber markets and the ongoing practice of exporting our best logs to the Far East for processing.  This continues the system of exporting our jobs and our resources and our money.  Wisconsin government and Universities actively block forest owner efforts to promote the use of locally grown and manufactured forest products. 

The timber industry is dominated by a few huge corporations.  These corporations influence and control the government  to protect the industrial system.  Even though the Wisconsin timber industry has lost 500,000 jobs and half of our production in the last 30 years to mechanization and globalization, the industrial dominance is still in place around here. 

I encourage other timber growers and urban forestry programs and governments and wood products customers to support the use of locally grown and manufactured forest products.  This would reduce the exporting of our best timber resources, lower the demand for illegally logged timber in the tropics, and boost our local economies.

No More Logs To Steal

It seems the biggest restriction on illegal logging these days is that we are running out of good trees to take.  We have liquidated the good forests – used up all the accessible old growth Teak and Mahogany and Walnut. National Geographic now has the latest big story on illegal logging, but it is just the same old sad story.

The present situation in Thailand’s Teak forests was summarized for me by Forestry Bureau forester, Prasert  Tappaneeyangkul.  “I have seen the world change in my life time. 50 years ago this area used to be mostly natural teak forest and now it is all gone.  European markets and loggers with chain saws took our forest – now we have to import timber into our country.  I’m afraid Burma will soon look like Thailand. Now it is Chinese companies that are taking the forests, they will pay whatever it takes to get the timber they want.  It is against our laws to cut in natural teak forests today, but illegal logging continues today.  Our forest department has only a few people, there is no way we can effectively patrol and protect our remaining natural forests.”

Travelling  to Brazil, Dominican Republic, Thailand, India, Ecuador, and Canada – I talk direct with the forest owners and workers in the timber industry.  Being just an experienced small business owner, there is always a complete acceptance and understanding and honest sharing with me.  Things are pretty much the same everywhere, from the timber grower’s point of view.

Here in SW Wisconsin I have been working with trees in our family forest for forty years – facing the same market pressures and political corruption as the people I meet in the woods of developing countries.  I tried running a successful business growing trees in the traditional timber industry and found it not possible.  The combination of very low market prices for logs and the industrial dominance of all small forest owners discourages any person from growing timber crops for profit.

There is a simple and universal solution to this huge market mess – and our family business here is a successful example that forest owners in almost any country can use now to live a better life.  With the power of the internet and fast global travel, small local businesses can take back control - in an industry that now profits only a few distant corporations while plundering what is left of our best natural resources.

We Do Just The Opposite of the Timber Industry

We learned from our Native Americans here to just take what the forest gives every year – never let the demand of industry affect the choice of what wood is used.   By using just the dead and dying timber – the truly mature trees in the forest – the trees will last forever.

We learned to take a small annual harvest so the forest is never over cut - to produce a steady income.  If there are no dead or dying trees, we thin the forest, always starting with the worst tree first.  We harvest an average of less than one tree per acre every year and have more growth than we can use.

We learned to do Arthroscopic logging using the smallest equipment possible.  There is minimal disturbance and damage, the forest is improved for the future, we earn good income, and the growth is not interrupted.

We process the logs right on the family farm, using each part of the tree for its highest value use.

We dry the wood with natural wind power and renewable heat from the sun.  Our kilns are the most energy efficient lumber dry kilns in the world and produce the best quality boards!  Really!!

We manufacture hundreds of different products in our simple workshop.  Custom blended character grade hardwood flooring, that we install and finish in our customer’s home, earns us a minimum of $10,000 per thousand board feet  ($10/board foot or roughly $5,000 per cubic meter).  Cabinets, counter tops, stairways, cutting boards etc. earn us several times this amount per board foot.  Arts and gifts and personalized items multiply the income earned. 

Selling high value finished wood products direct to customers maximizes our income and keeps nearly all of the money in the local economy.   Using just the dead trees from our 200 acre farm we now earn thousands of dollars per tree.  The potential income from our oak forest is at least $4,000 per acre and we could employ one person for every 10 acres of forest.  In urban forestry – the potential is to create one good job for every 50 average trees salvaged from the chipper and landfill.

When local trees are used in the regional economy, the demand for illegally logged trees and the wood from industrial clear cutting of the rainforest – is reduced by exactly that amount.  It is our wood purchasing choices that control the global markets for trees.  There is no other way to reduce the demand for rainforest timber.

Around the world today there is a huge effort to plant trees to meet our future need for wood.   Lumber from small, fast-growing Teak trees is not the same as boards produced from natural forest trees, so the demand for illegally logged natural Teak is unabated.

Only when the timber growers in the local community are paid a fair price for their trees and their labor will forest management ever become “sustainable”.   All efforts at “sustainable” and “certified” forest management are false if the forest owner and local community are not paid enough money so that growing trees is a profitable long term business. 

My efforts don’t waste time trying to change the industrial inertia in the traditional timber markets.  I simply say there is a better way and anyone can now earn the same benefits as our family business.  The only limitation is a person’s imagination.   www.FullValueForestry.com  has more information.

Full Value Forestry Conference and Tours begin at Plain Green TTEC

Full Value Forestry Conference and Tours       Plain Green TTEC – April 26& 27,  2013

Plain, WI

9am      Registration, coffee, snacks, displays of local wood products, building tour
                       Display of South American Hardwoods from growers in Brazil and Ecuador
9:30     Introductions and Welcome
10am   Full Value Forestry Overview – Jim Birkemeier, owner of Spring Green Timber Growers
11am   Bus Tours -  half of the group will participate in each location
                        Timbergreen Farm – forestry and on farm wood manufacturing facility
                                   Natural Forestry, Restoration Forestry, Plantation Forestry, Urban Forestry
                                          Jim Birkemeier
                                   Arthroscopic Logging and Directional felling
                                           Mike Neta - Sustainable Forestry Systems
                                   Sawmilling logs, solar kiln drying lumber
                                            Alex Green - Red Beard Woodworks
                                   Wood Workshop Operations
                                             Eric Olson - Concept Design and Building
                        Spring Green Timber Growers Store & Laser Shop – Downtown Spring Green
                                   Design and Production for Laser Cut and engraved wood
                                  
                                   Marketing Wood Products on the Internet
                                                Matt and Amie Van Susteren - Timber Green Woods
                                   Retail Store Operations and Social Media Tools for Selling Wood
                                                Amy Mills - Spring Green Timber Growers
                                  
12:30 – 1:30   Lunch will be at the Wisconsin Riverside Resort
1:45 – 2:15     Bus Tours – groups will switch locations
2:30     Plain Green TTEC
                  Promoting the use of locally grown and manufactured forest products
                  FromTheTimberGrower.com  market plan and training program
                  Fine Finishing Demonstration – Shawn Olmstead
4pm     Summary and adjourn
Registration will begin in Mid-March.
Maximum attendance – 100 per day.
for more information, contact Jim Birkemeier    (608) 588-7342
Article on Full Value Forestry

Wisconsin's biggest opportunity

Compared to our corn, hay, soybeans, dairy, beef farmers – Wisconsin’s tree farmers only score about 25% of their potential volume and value growth.

Forest owners know almost nothing about what is actually our State’s most abundant agricultural crop and the level of management of 10,000,000 acres of private forest is disgraceful and mostly destructive to the future of the resource.  Most harvests take just the best trees and leave a mess of damage.  Today, many of our best walnut and white oak trees are being cut and exported to the far East for manufacturing, while local timber prices and market demand are at an all time low.   500,000 jobs and half of the production of the timber industry in Wisconsin has recently been lost due to mechanization and globalization.

Low market prices for trees are the cause of the neglect and high-grading – timber has always been a plentiful and very cheap commodity, so forest owners have had little incentive to learn about their timber crop or manage their trees in a future minded way.

Many landowners have worked hard to follow the advice of the professional foresters in industry, government, and universities.  Over and over I hear, “I did everything the foresters have told me, but the income from the harvest is not worth the damage to my land.”  

An occasional short sighted profit is often taken by a forest owner as it is better than nothing, but if the landowner knew the real value of their wood products, they would be shocked and feel shortchanged by the timber industry.

Our family tried everything recommended by the DNR for many years and sold timber several times to commercial sawmills.  Benefits for our efforts were insignificant compared to the amount of work and the value of our investment in the forest.

In the huge timber industry, the forest owner is the only person who does not make a fair income for their time and investment.

No professional forester could ever live off of the money that the forest owner’s gain from the professional’s advice.

In the forestry profession, “sustainable forestry” is when the professional foresters’ job is supported and their wages are paid.  No forest owner ever earns a profitable or sustainable income despite all the experts’ talk about sound forestry and green programs.

Efforts to earn a fair price for landowners in Wisconsin have been undercut by the government subsidies in Canada and the illegal logging in the tropics and Siberia.  When most timber in the global markets is not paid for at any significant level, Wisconsin’s timber industry can not remain competitive when landowners want to be paid for their trees.

Unless people in Wisconsin and our leaders face the truth about our huge forest resource, we will continue to squander this vast and potentially valuable resource.

No one wants to admit this is true, even though they know it is so. 

Everyone is afraid of change and settled in a system.

No one values timber in the first place, so it is no big deal either way.

Professionals don’t want to admit their failure or risk their jobs.

Forest owners don’t want to admit they have been duped for so long. 

Forest owners also are afraid they won’t be able to sell their timber or get DNR tax breaks or management grants.

There is a working and rewarding alternative timber market for anyone who wants to participate.

This working system is what every forest owner and every professional forester would want if they knew about it.

www.FromTheTimberGrower.com   is a new and growing direct market to connect the consumers with the producers.

The goal is to promote the use of locally grown and manufactured wood products – first to meet local needs, then to export extra wood to other markets.

Wisconsin’s forestry professionals refuse to acknowledge that there is an alternative to the industrial forestry that supports their jobs, but the Timber Growers business model is recognized around the world by the United Nations and other groups as the leading marketing innovation in the global timber industry today.  Timber Growers has been invited as a featured speaker at the World Teak Conference in Bangkok in March 2013 and the United Nations International Conference on Wood in S Africa next October.  Past international conference presentations have been made in India, Viet Nam, New Zealand and Timber Growers is currently participating in marketing programs in Ecuador and Brazil. 

Certified - No Robots were used to make this product

Hand Made – No Robots were used in the production of this product

Everyone is talking about the shortage of good jobs.  Buy American and Buy Local are a good start, but to really support good jobs, look closer.

Even in our factories here, robots and huge machines have replaced hundreds of thousands of workers.  One big corporation now shows a TV advertisement featuring a line of robots working to make a car that can even fix itself when one robot breaks – no people are seen or needed anymore.  The company slogan in the ad is “for the human network”.    How Stupid Can We Get?? 

We all buy stuff now built primarily by robots and huge machines that have put masses of people out of work.  Then we complain about jobs and the economy.

We need to Choose to;

Buy as Local as Possible

Buy from As Small A Business as Possible

Buy as Hand Made as Possible

Buy the Best Value for the Future of the Planet

We control the economy and jobs by what we buy everyday.   We are all responsible for our current situation and only we can change our future.

Buying Smart in the new Global Economy should be our top priority.  We need to do just the opposite of what got us into this mess.

Anyone who buys imported stuff in the big corporation’s store is actively exporting your money and our jobs.  You are building businesses and countries and jobs on the other side of the world.  Workers there are buying cars, and their growing factories using more fossil fuels – all driving up the cost of our fuel at our local gas stations.

Wisconsin Small Family Business Award = 2012

Timbergreen Farm Wins the Wisconsin Small Family Business of the Year Award for 2012
A new Video - Timbergreen Farm Story of Sustainability  (3 minutes)
http://www.timbergreenfarm.com/   for details

Forest Supports the Local Economy

A forest should support the local community with building materials, many other products, a regular income, and good jobs.  This is kind of an old fashioned idea that has been lost the past 200 years due to global industrialization.   The industrial timber market with low commodity log prices continues to consume the remaining good timber on the planet, with few benefits to the local community, despite all the talk about sustainability and certification.

But every person who cares about the planet would agree that the forest should support the local community. 

Spring Green Timber Growers has built a new high value market for the wood we harvest each year from our small family farm, creating new jobs from dead trees.  We control the whole process from growing, harvesting, sawmilling, solar kiln drying, manufacturing, and direct marketing to customers.  By eliminating all the middlemen, using the smallest amount of energy, and minimizing shipping, we earn retail prices for our timber – about 100 times the income earned by other landowners.

Wood is easy to grow and harvest and manufacture on a small scale.  Wood products have a high value in the retail market.  Wood is the perfect fuel for small business in the local community.  Everyone uses wood everywhere – everyday – so these ideas are universal.

SGTG is developing a global wood marketing system to connect local wood growers direct with customers.  First priority is to use what people have to meet the local needs of the community, then export their extra wood to population centers that need wood products. 

Local Needs – Training and coaching can quickly get a small woodshop in operation. 

Global Marketing – a new website will link the grower with customers anywhere in the world.  Simple shipping of small packages to container loads is ongoing every day now.  Credit card payments online make payments easily.  Instant communication and global travel now connect people everywhere. 

The “American Dream” has gone global.  Anyone, Anywhere can run a small business to sell something that they make.  The only limitation is the imagination.