AFA Newsroom

AFA NEWSROOM V17N21, May 25, 2022

Join us for the Selma Area Regional Reception - June 9th

Make plans to join us next month at AFA's Selma Area Regional Reception at the Selma Country Club. We are looking forward to heading back to the Black Belt District.

Interested in being a sponsor? Give us a call at 334-481-2135 or 334-481-2129

Alabama, Mississippi Seaports Beefing Up Rail, Roadway Links

Deepwater ports of Alabama and Mississippi are busy beefing up rail and roadway connections as they look to improve the flow of burgeoning cargo volumes on and off their terminals.

And better intermodal links are just part of the story at mid-Gulf ports, where improved water access for larger vessels is also in the cards.

Looking individually, from east to west, at the latest at the three major seaports of Alabama and Mississippi.

Join Us For The June Session of

AFA Connect - June 16, 2022

Make plans to join us on June 16, 2022, at 11:00 am CST for the May AFA Connect session Recruiting Truck Drivers: Challenges and Strategies with Stephanie Fuller, FWTI. In this extraordinarily tight labor market, an aging workforce and more restrictive training guidelines, finding an insurable truck driver has become more difficult than ever. The Forest Workforce Training Institute (ForestryWorks) is working on solutions to help forest industry companies recruit and retain truck drivers through promotion, recruitment and training.

AFA Connect registration is two-part. Register with Alabama Forestry Association. You will receive a confirmation email from info@alaforestry.org with Zoom registration information.

REPORT: Lumber Prices Fall To New 2022 Low

In a May 19 report, Market Insider found that lumber prices fell to new lows in 2022 as April's existing home sales hit the lowest level since the start of the pandemic.

According to the report, lumber futures fell as much as 6% to below $700 per thousand board feet, its lowest level since November\. Quoting data from Finviz, a stock screener for traders, the Insider said that weakness in lumber can be attributed to a sharp rise in mortgage rates, which remain above 5% and have led to a slowdown in demand for homes from buyers.

Monroe County Learn & Burn -

Rescheduled for next week! May 31-June 2

Join us for the Monroe County Learn and Burn next week!

Increase your exposure and gain confidence in conducting a prescribed fire in your woodlands.

Overview of Current Tissue Markets and the Forces that Will Shape the Next 5 Years

The current North American tissue market is at about a 10 million short ton value with net imports (excluding the US and Canada) at about 480,000 short tons (st). When looking towards the future, we expect the market to grow by roughly 1% over the next year.

Within the North American tissue segment, ~1/3 of the market is made up of private label share. The image below illustrates the top 10 North American producers by capacity, and it’s interesting to note that the top 3 companies account for about 50% of total capacity.

Teacher Conservation Workshop

July 12th -14th

More Information

Did The Pandemic Drive Up Wood Production Costs?

During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, prices of processed wood products, such as softwood lumber and plywood, nearly quadrupled, according to a report from the Southern Research Station of the United States Department of Agriculture.

In a report by Virginia McDaniel of the USDA, she said that wholesale prices for plywood increased from $400 to $1500 per thousand square feet (roughly equivalent to retail prices of plywood increasing from about $12.80 to $48.00 per sheet).

In her report, Forest Service Senior Research Forester and Project Leader Jeffrey Prestemon studied the market factors behind increased prices in these important consumer products.

Are You Ready For The Beach? We Are!

AFA Annual Meeting - September 11-13

Registration for the 2022 AFA Annual Meeting is now open! Click the link below to learn more about our speakers, agenda and hotel information. We look forward to seeing you in September!

2022 AFA Annual Meeting

Take A Look

US Housing Starts, Building Permits Stall as Mortgage Rates Bite

US new-home home construction slipped in April amid ongoing supply-side challenges and the steepest climb in mortgage rates in decades.

Residential starts decreased 0.2% last month to a 1.72 million annualized rate after a downwardly revised 1.73 million pace in the prior month, according to government data released Wednesday. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a 1.76 million pace.

Applications to build, a proxy for future construction, fell to an annualized 1.82 million units.

MIT Engineers Build Load-Bearing Structures Using Tree Forks Instead Of Steel Joints

According to food and beverage giant Kraft Heinz, even condiment packaging can be sustainable. The company announced this week that it's pairing up with sustainable packaging company Pulpex to develop a "paper-based, renewable and recyclable bottle."

The bottle, Kraft Heinz said, is aimed to be made from "100 percent sustainably sourced wood pulp." Heinz is the first sauce brand to test such packaging, the company said.

Inflation And Logging Costs

Logging is largely a high-volume, low-margin business. Production is critical to profit. Where costs are fixed, like payments on half-million dollar machines, squeezing extra production per hour, day, or week can offset those costs with increased revenue. However, more production means more consumption, and variable costs such as fuel and equipment repairs increase commensurately. Thus, the role of inflation on logging businesses depends on where those cost increases occur and how quickly. Fuel costs often get a large focus because prices can be volatile, and loggers cannot offset them with greater production.

University of Idaho ICCU Basketball Arena: A Case Study in Public-Private Partnerships In Mass Timber Construction

Southern Timber Prices Continued To Climb In 1Q2022

Continuing the strong demand trend that we witnessed during most of 2021, the weighted average price for southern timber surged to a new 15-year high in 1Q2022. Stumpage prices were up +5% quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) and +19% year-over-year (YoY). The last time Forest2Market’s Southwide weighted average stumpage price was this high was in 2Q2007, just before the onset of the Great Recession.