The Wall Street Journal had a great article a while back on the current southern pine timber glut. When I first read this article, it pretty much described our farm to a tee. While a large part of our farm had always been forestland, we had always had crops and cattle. This meant lots of open pasture. When the CRP program came out, my family enrolled most of our open pasture into the program. It seemed like a no-brainer at the time. Cattle prices were down and raising crops costs a lot of capital. Plant it all in tree’s and collect the money later.
The problem is that so many other landowners did the same thing. 20-30 years later and we have a massive timber supply glut. Right now the stumpage price for pine pulpwood is dismal. You can’t hardly give away pulpwood. The double-edged sword is that I can’t continue to hold out for higher prices. Many of my pine stands are too thick and need to be thinned out. I’ve made the decision that I’m going to cut every year during the dry season no matter the price. I won’t make much money but it’s better than getting a southern pine beetle infestation or a wildfire that wipes out the entire stand.
Hopefully, mills will start coming back in the near future.