Better known for its production in cotton, catfish, and sweet potatoes, Mississippi is one of the leading producers in another agricultural industry: forests.
Across Mississippi, some 350,000 private landowners control approximately 75 percent of all the forest area in the state, which contributed $1.16 billion to the state’s economy in 2015. A majority of these private owners sell their wood to companies like Weyerhaeuser.
Controlling more than 26 million acres of forestland around the world, the company thins the timber to retain high value trees for use as dimensional lumber and plywood. The remaining majority of the smaller, lower value trees are used to make pulp and paper products. However, over the past two decades a decline in print and paper use has taken its toll on the forest industry.
Jason Gibson, Weyerhaeuser Marketing Forester: “We’ve seen a decline in the southern United States in the pulp and paper industry in the last few years. And as those mills have gone out we’ve lost some markets that we really need to be able to keep our forests growing at a sustainable level.”
Five southern states including Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and South Carolina, produce over 50 percent of the nation’s wood used for pulp and paper production. Scurrying to find a new industry to sell lower grade timber, and to ensure that forests would be preserved, the pellet industry took root.
From Iowa Public Television: https://site.iptv.org/mtom/story/25600/mississippi-logging-finds-business-opportunities-across-pond