The majority of the Timber industry is owned by large companies/organizations. These company’s increasing ownership in timberland has negatively affected independent logging companies and saw mills which inevitably has a negative effect on the independent timberland owner.
As competition decreases, prices assigned to the actual timber owners gets less and less competitive. This coupled with the same large companies control of the market has created relatively flat market prices as depicted in the charts below.
The most obvious example of this price control was reflected in the recent COVID pandemic. If you compare the lumber prices below with the raw lumber prices above you will see that although lumber increased significantly, there was no noticeable change on the price received by the owner of the timber.
1 -The actual methods of harvesting standing timber plays a vital role in the success of the replant.
2 - Timber has an approximate 30-year growth cycle from planting to harvesting saw logs.
3 - Decisions are made (typically by families, not in-tune to the industry) once every decade or so.
4 - As a side effect to the aforementioned, the revenue tends to skip generations.
5 - Finding reliable consultation is getting increasingly more difficult as time goes on.