Fall 2000 Volume 9, Number 3
FORESTRY CO-OP A COMING ATTRACTION?
by Richard G. Reid, Reid Consulting, Indianapolis
Are forestry co-operatives, an emerging concept among private landowners in the upper Midwest, something that the future holds for Indiana? A recent conference in Madison, WI, sponsored by the Community Forest Resource Center of St. Paul, MN and the University of Wisconsin Center for Co-operatives provided information that helped broaden understanding of the concept. The conference included general and workshop sessions, exhibits, and a day in the field at a co-op and a member's forest. The sessions focused on the managerial challenges of creating and sustaining a coop as well as technical information relating to sustainable forest management.
Of course commodity co-ops have been around for a longtime. They are large and small, successful and struggling. Forming a forestry co-op does not differ substantially from organizing any type of joint effort. However, there are laws that apply specifically to coops regarding organization and finances.
Organizing a successful co-op takes time and patience. The effort usually starts with a few people who have an idea about how working together can meet objectives which they cannot meet by themselves. As others are drawn to the idea, a core group of people can come together to discuss objectives, organization, financing, and other important issues. Eventually other skills such as professional organization management, legal, and accounting will have to be brought in to create a successful operation.
What can a forestry co-operative do?
Conference attendees visited the Sustainable Woods Cooperative in southern Wisconsin west of Madison. The organization is about three years old and has 120 members representing over 20,000 acres of privately owned land. All members must manage their land under a plan that has been certified as sustain-able. Several consulting foresters are-involved in the forest management. The co-op currently has a small sawmill and solar dry kiln, and the objective is to manufacture lumber for builders and other customers who specify hardwood products from certified sustainable forests. Expansion plans are in place. While the operation is in the start up phase, the outlook is promising according to co-op president Tom Thieding.
The Sustainable Woods Cooperative represents the most sophisticated type of operation. A co-op could be organized simply to market logs or stumpage and does not necessarily have to be based on certified sustainability. Co-op members need to consider what advantages they can create by adding value to their forest outputs or improving management of their property. Marketing of non-wood forest products through a co-operative is a possibility, for example.
Will we see forestry co-operatives in Indiana? That question only can be answered by individual forest landowners. If a group of landowners perceives advantages in organizing a co-op, either in marketing products or improving forest management, there are support organizations and forest and organization managers available to help.