It has been consulting with woodlot owners this spring about the potential for creating a sustainable woodland food industry.

“We are trying to suggest to landowners that they can do something with these unused areas,” said Mike James of WAM.

The initiative is looking at woodlots, shelterbelts, treed lots or river bottom forest to assess the inventory of existing wild food production and the potential for enhanced use of wooded farmlands to grow wild foods.

The Woodland Farm Food Project has been supported by Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Development and the Growing Forward 2 initiative.

“We thought that the best way to go about this was to set up consultation meetings not just to talk about timber forest products or wild foods but to ask people what they thought about this and what they have been doing and what kind of direction they would like to see this move,” said James.

According to WAM, Manitoba currently has 2.4 million acres of privately owned wooded land, shared by approximately 13,500 landowners. The organization believes that these areas offer an untapped opportunity for economic diversity.

Wooded lands can offer a multitude of consumables, including wild nuts, berries, forest honey, birch and maple syrup, edible fungi, herbal tea sources, essential oil sources and wild salad ingredients.

Consultations have been held in The Pas, Dauphin, Brandon, Portage, and meetings are scheduled in Selkirk and Lac du Bonnet later this month.

“We have seen a cross-section of individuals attend these meetings, everyday producers, Hutterites, First Nations individuals as well as woodlot owners. The interest is there and we have received some good response on our survey,” said James.

The project builds on previous work done by the Manitoba Model Forest and the Northern Development Centre, which had previously focused on forested areas in the North on First Nations’ land.

WAM has now shifted focus to the wooded lands in the province’s agriculture zone and is looking at how practices used in the North can be adapted and improved for the southern areas.

“In the past there have been a lot of harvesters trained to harvest various products and wild foods but there has been difficulty getting them to market, as many buyers don’t want to purchase in small amounts,” said James. “But, we have certainly seen a market for these products and as consumers move more towards natural products, we expect the demand to increase.”

WAM believes that creating a co-operative would be the ideal solution.

Participants of the consultations said rather than a large co-operative they prefer forming a small collective where harvesters could get training, collect materials and share equipment.

“Through the feedback I have received, I really believe that the development of a co-operative is critical in getting this industry to take off,” said James. “We are suggesting that there is a need for one or two smaller co-operatives in Manitoba that would be a resource to sell these products.”

Upon conclusion of the meetings, WAM is expected to complete a report outlining the validity of harvesting and marketing wild foods in Manitoba by the end of May.

The organization will also look at the possibility of developing an assessment tool to assist landowners in determining what is currently growing on their land and what their land is best suited for.

“Following the consultation and report we are hoping to gain further funding in order to develop an assessment tool, create training sessions to inform people what they can grow on their property and how to harvest in a sustainable way and look to create a pilot co-operative to see if this would improve the validity of bringing these materials to market,” said James.

Anyone interested in growing or harvesting wild foods is encouraged to visit woodlotmanitoba.com or send questions and comments by email to wff@woodlotmanitoba.com.

The post Assessing the validity of wild food production in Manitoba appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Short-term contracts for four forestry technicians based in communities in the southern part of the province were allowed to expire in March, and grants for logging based on beneficial management practices will no longer be offered.

A provincial spokesperson confirmed the Manitoba Agro Woodlot Program is now being delivered by GO teams across the province.

The long-term costs will be much higher than the short-term savings, said Allan Webb, secretary treasurer of the Manitoba Woodlot Association, because the program helped farmers and landowners capitalize on the formerly overlooked economic value of well-managed forests.

“I was very disappointed, but I wasn’t terribly surprised because natural resource management isn’t a priority in this province,” said Webb.

The Agro Woodlot Program staff were doing “really good stuff that nobody else was,” he said. That included training people how to operate chainsaws safely, how to estimate the value of standing timber, and providing advice and sample contracts for landowners dealing with private loggers, he said.

It’s doubtful that GO team staff, who probably aren’t familiar with the intricacies of forestry, will be able to provide meaningful hands-on assistance, he added.

Webb also questioned the wisdom of shutting down a one-of-a-kind program aimed at turning a neglected and often wasted resource into hard cash and jobs for people in rural areas. Less assistance for people wanting to start up small-scale sawmill operations will likely result in more finished products being imported from Ontario or the U.S., he said.

“A lot of landowners didn’t realize that they had a valuable resource,” said Webb, who predicted the result will likely mean more potentially valuable bush pushed into ugly piles and burned.

How valuable is the resource?

A March presentation by Agro Woodlot staff pegged the value of firewood at $150 to $275 per cord, and kiln-dried burr oak at $3.20 per lineal foot.

For example, four cords of ash or oak saw logs are worth $400 to $600, or $100 in stumpage fees for the landowner. If turned into rough cut lumber, that same four cords could fetch $3,000, or $7,000 if turned into tongue-and-groove flooring. If an ambitious sawyer were to install, sand and stain that same four cords of sawlogs, it would be worth $14,000, they said.

The post Province bulldozes Agro Woodlot Program appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

“There’s basically two stand types in southern Manitoba,” Carol Graham, a MAFRI woodlot forester based in Souris, said at a recent presentation at the Forester’s Memorial Hall in Baldur.

“The one that’s most prevalent is an even-aged stand, typically of a single species, predominantly aspen and poplar, or jack-pine and black spruce as you move into northern Manitoba.”

Clear-cutting even-aged stands – such as aspen and poplar bluffs – mimics nature, specifically Prairie fires which used to periodically sweep through these small pockets of forest. (The other type of stand is made up of multiple species of different ages, and can include hardwoods such as oak, ash, and maple mixed with softwoods. Clear-cutting is not the best harvest strategy for these stands.)

Mimicking a fire event usually involves clearing out mature trees in blocks of at least two acres. The leftover slash piles and strewn branches may look ugly for a year or two, but once the canopy is broken and the sun warms the soil, reserves in the root systems send up suckers that quickly develop into new trees and the cycle begins anew.

NEW GROWTH

“Throughout their lifetime, they maintain a uniform height, maturity, and stem structure,” said Graham, adding such stands generally reach peak productivity at about 60 years, and then decline as disease, insects and shrubs move in.

“The reason is that these are species that don’t like competition and want the whole space to themselves,” she said. “They don’t like sharing nutrients or moisture.”

In southern Manitoba, most aspen and poplar stands are overmature, and “going to pot,” she said. This can be seen in virtually impenetrable under-storey growth that drives out deer; prevalence of rot caused by fungal infections such as false tinder konk; and insect infestations.

It’s a natural progression – overmature bush is just waiting for fire to push its reset button.

RESET BUTTON

Such stands have little harvestable timber, and generally only yield firewood. Clear-cutting is best done in winter when energy reserves are in the roots, and the soil is frozen to minimize ruts from heavy machinery.

In uneven-aged stands, especially those with hardwood species, responsible harvesters employ a different strategy focused on opening up gaps in the canopy. Removing dead, diseased, deformed or dying trees gives better trees that have more room to grow. In a 10-year span, growth rings show properly managed oak trees can grow by an inch and a quarter in diameter at the stump, compared to half an inch for those trying to crowd each other out.

To encourage landowners to make better use of their woodlot resources, the provincial government offers forest BMP (Beneficial Management Practices) incentive grants.

In the last three years, landowners with a total of about 110 acres have taken advantage of the program (for more, see www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/woodlot).

“We’re trying to encourage landowners to go out and manage their woodlots,” said Shawn Dias, a woodlot forester from Somerset.

REMOVING DEAD

As most are overmature, the first stage involves removing dead, diseased and dying trees for firewood. Strategic cutting to reduce competition follows in the second stage, while felling of top-quality saw logs is done in the third.

Woodlot owners or loggers who have gone through a one-day basic course in felling techniques and saw safety and sharpening, as well as a two-day session in low-impact logging, are eligible for grants of $390 per acre for a seven-acre woodlot, for a maximum of $2,730. Courses are usually held in fall, and cover bucking and skidding with tractors, ATVs and horses.

“The incentive dollars are aimed at covering the operating costs of the logger, because really we’re asking them to come in and take out all the junk,” said Dias, adding the program also offers a template for a timber sales agreement.

If the landowner does the work, he or she gets to keep the firewood and the money.

“On average, I’d say there is about 30 to 60 cords of wood coming out of these projects,” said Dias.

Woodlot foresters first visit the site and conduct a woodlot

management plan with a full inventory of what’s there, and later return for a post-harvest inspection. Infill planting may also be done where necessary.

Contrary to popular belief, low-impact logging is generally an acceptable use of land covered by conservation agreements, said Al Bourrier, a Manitoba Habitat Heritage Corporation representative based in Killarney.

Agreements can be altered by “mutual consent,” he said because it’s recognized woodlot management can improve wildlife habitat.

“You might be thinking to yourself that you can’t do a woodlot management plan if you’ve signed a conservation agreement because it says that you can’t clear, but we can work with landowners and issue a permit so that they can go ahead,” said Bourrier. daniel. winters@fbcpublishing.com

———

“Thereasonisthatthesearespecies thatdon’tlikecompetitionandwantthe wholespacetothemselves.Theydon’t likesharingnutrientsormoisture.”

– Carol Graham

The post To Clear-Cut Or Not, That Is The Question appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Well, that thought crossed the minds of Shirley and Ted Ross and they decided not to leave anything to chance.

“There is quite diverse wildlife and plant life on our property,” said Shirley, a landowner near Roseisle. “We didn’t like the possibility of it not being this way after we are gone.”

To ensure that the property remained in its natural state in perpetuity, Shirley and her husband Ted, decided to protect it with a Conservation Agreement (CA). They contacted the Manitoba Habitat Heritage Corporation (MHHC) to start the process.

“This CA protects the riparian corridor situated along a very diverse stretch of natural habitat,” said Al Bourrier, the MHHC habitat conservation specialist in Killarney. In addition to protecting valuable wildlife habitat, their land also helps to improve water quality by slowing run-off, filtration and contributing to groundwater recharge.

CAs are a form of easement and a tool that allows landowners to permanently protect the habitat on a portion of their property for future generations. They continue to hold title to the land and enjoy all the other benefits of land ownership.

“I have been around here a long time and seen land deforested and wetlands done away with,” Shirley said. “It would be a real shame if that was what happened here. We wanted to make sure it stays as natural as possible.”

The area protected by this CA is situated in a rugged natural valley located between Roseisle and St. Lupicin, which is ecologically diverse and has a variety of plants and wildlife. For example, huge mature trees including elm, ash, oak, birch, maple and aspen grow along this rugged valley property. Wildlife is also very diverse.

“We have had coyotes in the yard eating apples,” laughs Shirley. “Once we had a moose in full velvet. “ Deer, raccoons, porcupines, wild turkeys, and a wide variety of songbirds are all common.

Years back, this valley region earned a reputation for attracting people seeking a peaceful and harmonious lifestyle. Looking across the rugged, yet beautiful, valley it is easy to understand the attraction.

Needless to say the quality and diversity of the local landscape, kept virtually intact by the local people, was part of the attraction and contributes to the quality of life and the lifestyle enjoyed by the citizens along the valley. Much of the habitat here remains intact, due to the foresight of local landowners.

For Shirley and Ted, their interest and love for the valley runs deep. Their home is situated adjacent to the place where her grandparents lived and her father’s retirement home. She visited here frequently as a child growing up and eventually, in 1971, purchased a quarter section. Shirley and Ted made their permanent home here in 1999.

The CA hasn’t changed much for the Ross family. They continue to own the property and they are developing walking trails for their personal enjoyment. As well they recently completed a woodlot management plan to ensure that the forest is properly managed.

The woodlot plan, developed by Manitoba Agro Woodlot Program staff, recommends harvesting the mature aspen on seven acres of their 114-acre CA. Good management is part of the long-term plan.

Now that dust has settled and there has been time to re-evaluate the decision to permanently protect their property, Shirley is certain they have made the right decision.

The big difference is the peace of mind in knowing their precious place is protected and that they are doing the right thing for the right reason. While they benefit by keeping the surrounding area natural, everyone benefits from clean water and a healthy environment.

“Absolutely it was the right decision, there is no downside,” she said. “It‘s a really good feeling to think that you can still keep one tiny little green part of the world.”

For more information on CAs, contact a Manitoba Habitat Heritage Corporation office in Minnedosa (867-6032), Reston (877-3162), Shoal Lake (759-4220) or Killarney (523-5522). MHHC, with a mandate to conserve and restore habitat, is a provincial Crown corporation that reports to the Manitoba Department of Water Stewardship.

The post Will It Stay The Same After You Are Gone? appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

It’s hard to imagine a more annoying sound than these saws cutting through the afternoon’s calm, but their function contributes to a much more pleasant aftermath – the warmth of a crackling winter fire. In addition to the esthetics, there is the practical matter of reduced energy costs – not counting the labour involved with the gathering.

And to the extent that these wood gatherers are cleaning up deadfall, diseased or dying trees, in various woodlots around the province, they provide a service that others can at least appreciate, if not directly enjoy.

Chainsaws are also at work in woodlots harvesting trees for lumber in a growing number of locations. Agro-forestry and sustainable woodlot management is becoming a viable farm and rural enterprise as evidenced by the participants in the province’s agro-woodlot programs. These programs, which combine extension support with financial incentives for landowners to manage their wooded areas differently, are opening the door to on-farm diversification in a way that supports rural families, while protecting the landscape.

The same can’t be said for the sights and sounds of bulldozers, also working feverishly in the autumn months, tearing out long rows of shelter belts in various locations around the province. In most cases, these are mature stands that are being torn out by the roots, piled, burned and buried. Expediency has overruled any thought of salvaging the wood from these stands, either for lumber or fuel.

Aside from the sheer wastefulness of this practice, there is the bigger question of why these shelter belts are being removed in the first place.

Landowners will argue the trees get in the way of the larger farm equipment and efficient farming practices. These rows of trees, some of which date back decades, are accused of competing with crops for nutrients and moisture, and preventing drainage. And there are those pesky buffer zones the federal government implemented – but has never really enforced – that require farmers to avoid spraying too close to trees and wetlands by up to 15 metres.

Their removal may make it easier for farmers to cover their land with modern farm equipment, but it is questionable that that equates with more profitable farming or that it contributes to sustainability.

Studies have shown that even after taking into account the land, nutrients and water shelter belts take away from annual crops, these rows of trees can increase crop yields by 3.5 to 6.5 per cent. That is in addition to their longer-term value of reducing soil erosion and providing a sheltered microclimate that improves crop performance.

Can a handful of extra acres make up for a yield penalty of 3.5 per cent? How much additional fertilizer is required to make up for organic matter that has blown away?

Although few farmers today can remember the dust bowl “dirty thirties,” these trees were put there for a reason, with support from the public purse, to help farmers control soil erosion that was threatening the very future of farming on the Prairies. Conservation tillage has gone a long way towards mitigating that risk. But parts of this province have wicked dust storms almost annually. It’s not uncommon to see the snow in roadside ditches blackened by soil that has drifted off the fields during the winter.

Some of the trees being torn up this fall are in municipalities that received a portion of $1.9 million in emergency disaster assistance to help clean out ditches plugged by eroded soil after a particularly windy weekend in early May 2008.

Perhaps you could argue that the value of free trees is only a fraction of the cost of establishing a shelter belt, but those trees are being provided because farmers convinced governments shelter belts were a good idea. So the public is helping to plant these trees, and the public is helping pay the cost of cleaning up the mess made by dust storms, a mess that is mitigated at least in part when shelter belts are left in place.

Yet as things are now, the public has no say in if, when or how these shelter belts are erased. In many respects, farmers should be grateful the provincial government has virtually turned a blind eye to this issue. No one is even tracking how many miles of shelter belts are levelled annually; if they were, things might change in a hurry.

But one suspects that day is coming, just as it has now arrived for on-farm drainage, manure management and stubble burning.

Should farmers be required to obtain a permit before they start removing trees?

We know how most farmers would answer that question. But ultimately it comes down to whether governments believe there is any other choice. laura@fbcpublishing.com

The post Breaking Down The Windbreaks appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Out of the seven-acre plot from which they are doing a managed harvest, they have already removed 30 cords of firewood in the form of crooked, dead, over-mature or otherwise undesirable trees as part of the timber stand improvement project’s first year.

Currently in year two, the Manitoba Agro Woodlot Program’s Best Management Practices or BMP harvest-incentive program is aimed at helping woodlot owners and loggers develop the skills necessary to develop a local, self-sustaining microforestry industry, said Shawn Dias, a woodlot forester and MAFRI business development specialist.

As part of the tour of a woodlot north of Mather last week, Dias showed how two seven-acre parcels of river bottom, hardwood forest could be managed to improve the yield and quality of timber harvested, as well as improving the stand’s value as wildlife habitat.

WORST FIRST

In January of last year, Dias and the Pogsons selectively cut in the first block; the second block has been flagged but not cut. Doing the work in winter with plenty of snowpack over frozen ground prevents damage and compaction to the forest floor. A 100-foot cable winch on the tractor helps them get the logs out using only narrow access trails.

The timber stand improvement harvest strategy is the opposite of the way logging is typically done. Instead of “high-grading,” which means cutting only the best and leaving the rest, the BMPs call for a “worst-first” strategy.

“The selection criteria is anything dead, diseased or dying,” said Dias, adding that it may also include thinning of trees that are growing too close together for optimal growth.

“There’s a misconception that doing nothing is the best thing to do. But what we’ve found is that in certain circumstances, doing nothing is actually doing a disservice to your bush because your stand is slowly degrading.”

The first phase of the program generally involves mostly pulling firewood out, with the occasional good-quality saw log. In the years that follow, better logs might be taken.

To be eligible for the BMP harvest program, the woodlot must be a good-quality hardwood stand in a river valley setting. Those doing the logging – often the landowner and the logger is the same person – must have taken a chainsaw safety course and a two-day, low-impact logging course.

In return for a one-year commitment, the landowner gets an improved seven-acre timber stand and the logs harvested.

PROGRAM EXPANDING

Compensation, a one-time payment of $390 per acre, is aimed at paying the logger for their time and effort. But the landowner must also contribute 25 per cent in cash or in kind, generally a share of the logs or firewood. Some landowner-loggers have used the cash to invest in equipment such as winches or grapple forwarders, he noted.

This year, the program has enough funding from the province’s climate change action plan to cover 57 acres of managed woodlots, expanding to 72 acres next year.

The Pogsons have been using the wood from the BMP block to heat their own buildings. But if they chose to sell it, prices generally rise and fall with the cost of heating oil.

Currently, oak firewood currently sells for over $200 per cord, while poplar brings as much as $180 per cord in Winnipeg.

For the Pogsons, fourth-generation farmers, using the bush as a source of income has a long tradition. Back in the days before green treated fence posts were available, Pogson’s grandfather cut and sold oak posts for fencing out of that same bush.

OLD TRADITION REVIVED

One winter during the Depression, he cut 10,000 posts and sold them to farmers living in the virtually treeless areas further south from the forested area near Rock Lake.

“That’s how he fed his family in the ’30s,” said Pogson. “Times were tough. And he didn’t have a chainsaw.”

The effect of his grandfather’s selective cutting of fence post-sized trees can still be seen, even some 80 years later by the absence of trees of a certain size.

“With Shawn and the Woodlot Association’s help, I’m hoping it will be an even better bush.”

MAFRI business development specialist Shane Tornblom said that although the culture of woodlot management historically never made it further west than Ontario, the program aims to change that for the benefit of farmers and rural communities.

“We’re not trying to tie this in with traditional industrial forestry. We’re trying to make this as close to the farm and rural communities as possible with the potential for producing high-quality products that they could sell into the urban market.”

The post Money Grows On Trees appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Please forward your agricultural events to daveb@fbcpublishing.comor call 204-944-5762

Aug. 26-28 – International Farm Succession Conference, Fairmont le Chateau Frontenac, 1 Rue des Carrieres, Quebec City. Presented by the Canadian Farm Business Management Council. For more info visit www.farmcentre.com.

Sept. 10-13 – WaterEdWest: Western Canada Water Education Conference, Banff Centre, Banff, Alta. For more info call 780-421-1497 or visit www.wateredwest.ca.

Sept. 12 – Sheep and goat parasite workshop and FAMACHA training, 8:30 a. m. to 12 p. m., Kleefeld. Lunch to follow. Registration free for Manitoba Sheep Association/ Manitoba Goat Association members, $10 for non-members. For more info call Richard Davis at 204-427-3633, Bill Paulishyn at 204-866-2806 or Mamoon Rashid at 204-945-7557.

Sept. 15-17 – Big Iron Farm Show, 9 a. m. to 5 p. m. daily, Red River Valley Fairgrounds, West Fargo, N. D. For more info visit www.bigironfarmshow.com.

Sept. 18 – Woodlot Field Day, 10 a. m. to 2:30 p. m., Mosquin’s Woodlot north of Beausejour. For more info or to pre-register contact Ken Fosty of the Manitoba Forestry Association Woodlot Program at 204-453-3182.

Sept. 23-24 – Western Nutrition Conference, Hotel Fort Garry, 222 Broadway, Winnipeg. For more info visit www.westernutritionconference.com.

Sept. 25-27 – Llama Canada national conference, Best Western Denham Inn and Suites, 5207-50th Ave., Leduc, Alta. For more info call toll free 1-866-450-2172 or visit www.llamacanada.com.

The post What’s Up – for Aug. 27, 2009 appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

“It’s like money in the bank. Once these trees are free of competition they have more available light, more available water, more available nutrients. “

– Shawn Dias

Dave Pogson’s grandfather helped feed his family during the Dirty Thirties selling oak fence posts he felled with an axe in his bush south of Rock Lake.

Some 70 or so years later Dave and his brother Barry are preparing to harvest oak and ash from that same woodlot, which they also use to pasture cattle. But unlike their grandfather the Pogsons will harvest trees with the aid of chainsaws and a tractor.

And instead of fence posts, the brothers will use their homemade sawmill to make lumber they can use themselves and sell. Perhaps one-third to half of the timber they pull out will go for firewood. That’s because the emphasis is on rejuvenating their woodlot – removing dead and dying trees as well as those that will never make good lumber. By doing so they’ll reduce the competition for sunlight and nutrients for the remaining trees.

“It’s like money in the bank,” says Shawn Dias, a woodlot forester with Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives (MAFRI) based in Somerset.

“Once these trees are free of competition they have more available light, more available water, more available nutrients. That will put on more diameter growth over time versus if there was nothing done.”

The Pogsons built their own sawmill, powered with an 18-horsepower Briggs and Stratton engine, five or six years ago and they’ve been refining it ever since. Dave says they sell their lumber to local crafters and use it themselves. They might even make flooring and cupboards.

The part of the woodlot visited by participants in the low-impact logging workshop here Nov. 4 is mainly forested with oak and ash, with a lot of hazel underbrush. Although it’s also used as cattle pasture one wouldn’t know it; there are no signs of worn cattle paths or even old cow pies. Dave credits “holistic management” that he and Barry have adopted. Their cattle graze the area for five days. The pasture has 60 to 65 days without grazing to recover. The result is the Pogsons have a sustainable pasture and woodlot. Overgrazing reduces grass production and kills trees.

The woodlot has several “steps” of relatively flat land connected by steep slopes. Workshop participants walked the area scouting out a skidding trail designed to be efficient but also minimize damage to the terrain and remaining trees. Dragging trees up a steep slope can gouge the land making it vulnerable to severe erosion. Moreover, any soil washed away from this woodlot could end up in nearby Rock Lake, reducing its water quality.

Before harvesting begins, the logger needs a plan, says Ken Lallemont, a game of logging instructor from Catawba, Wisconsin. In addition to marking a skidding trail, the logger needs to know if they have the necessary equipment to get the logs out of the bush.

MAFRI has a program to assist woodlot owners to replant, but since the Pogsons have such a large woodlot and pasture it, they’re better off to focus on natural regeneration, says St. Pierre Jolys-based MAFRI woodlot forester Ian Kirby.

“There are thousands and thousands and thousands of acorns here waiting to get a shot at life, we’ve just got to give them the opportunity,” he says.

Coincidentally, dragging logs across the ground assists the process by scarifying the acorns, making them more likely to grow. allan@fbcpublishing.com

The post The Pogson brothers are harvesting trees from the same bush as their grandfather Third generation earns money from woodlot appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

“It would be nice to see a younger generation take this up.”

– BEAT CHRISTEN

When Beat Christen bought 68 acres of land along the Boyne River 20 years ago, most of it was heavily treed with mature oak and ash and basswood.

It remains so today, even after he’s removed plenty of lumber from it.

Christen knew he’d acquired a valuable tract of land, and not just for its esthetics, or because agro-Manitoba has few remnants of undisturbed river bottom forest left.

“I saw that the trees had value, they weren’t a nuisance or weeds,” says Christen, who planned to farm at the site initially, but never to push trees out of the way to do it.

He and his partner Donna did farm on a small scale for a while, raising pigs, sheep and cattle. But they quickly concluded they needed to do more.

That’s when Beat began thinking about running a business as a sawmill operator. He’d had experience from working summer jobs in sawmills before emigrating from Switzerland to Manitoba in 1980. In Manitoba, he saw potential in agro-forestry, even though it was in its infancy in the early 1990s. He wondered whether there was an opportunity here for operating a portable sawmill that custom sawed lumber. And was there any demand for the hardwood lumber he could selectively harvest off his own land?

“I wanted to be selfemployed,” he says, adding that this seemed a good fit with his and Donna’s other objectives, including diversifying farm income and making a living using the resources of their land.

He began to acquire basic skills in both woodlot management and tree harvesting. These came through attending agro-forestry workshops of fered by Mani toba Agro Woodlot Program. He also talked to foresters about the techniques of selective harvesting, or choosing the best tree to cut, saw, mill and kiln. He prepared a business plan, secured a loan. Finally, he bought the mill.

Brisk business

It marked the beginning of a brisk business that generated enough work and income to keep him busy and working full time for the next 13 years.

Word of mouth spread quickly and he’d see one job lead to another in quick succession. He took his sawmill on the road anywhere within a 150-mile radius, with customers as far north as Ste. Rose, east to Hadashville and, frequently, in the Spruce Woods area. Most landowners were those who were harvesting trees on their land for wood to use themselves building fences, sheds or barns. “There were not that many mills around.”

And there still aren’t – even as demand remains as strong as ever, says Christen.

He now keeps his portable mill on-site. Customers bring logs to him. He has acquired a kiln, and now provides both services. He continues to selectively harvest hardwood trees from his own property, turning them into timber sought after by woodworkers and furniture makers. The Christens have planted literally thousands of trees, including green and black ash on their land, “for the next generation,” says Beat.

This past winter he and several others also salvaged oak trees being cleared on a quarter section of farmland near Carman. Christen custom sawed those logs into timbers for a post and beam home under construction. He also milled the oak into hardwood flooring.

Share the work

In all, he estimates he’s sawn over a million board feet of lumber since he got started.

He could keep right at it, too, except for one thing; he’d rather share the work around. “We’re trying to downsize a little bit now. We can only do so much and I have to turn some away.”

That’s why Christen says others should think seriously about a similar business. In fact, this is an opportunity others are missing, given the demand. It’s an excellent way to earn extra income on a farm, and could fit well with a farmer’s seasonal schedule. “It would be nice to see a younger generation take this up,” says Christen.

“I think people under-es timate the potential in this business,” says Shane Tornblom, program manager of the Manitoba Agro Woodlot Program, an initiative offered through MAFRI under the federal-provincial Agricultural Policy Framework (APF).

Christen’s approach is successful because he produces high-quality product and has added value to his production, offering both the milling and kilning, he said.

Moving up the value chain is where the money is to be made, said Tornblom. Take a log of plain, wood, worth maybe a buck. “If you took it right through, milled it, kiln dried it, turned it into tongue and groove flooring and then installed and finished it, you can multiply the value of that by 25 times at least.

“We’re working hard to develop the markets and really trying to encourage people to go right from the log through to the finished product,” Tornblom said.

The Manitoba Agro Woodlot Program (MAWP) is putting new emphasis on value-added production, and the tie-in with key trends such as buying local and reducing reliance on imports, woodlot renewal and associated positive environmental impacts, he added.

Want more info? Log on to: www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/woodlot/.

lorraine@fbcpublishing.com

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Manitoba has the hardwood and Shane Tornblom believes there are buyers willing to pay a premium for a locally produced, high-quality product.

“That’s why we want to get a micro-forestry industry going in Manitoba,” Tornblom, Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives’ (MAFRI) business development specialist for woodlots, told a dozen or so participants here for a seminar on lowimpact logging Nov. 4.

To that end MAFRI is offering an incentive program, including up to $2,730 for woodlot owners to either harvest their own trees or contract with a logger to do it. To qualify, “best management practices” have to be employed when harvesting the trees.

Woodlot owners can enrol up to seven acres in the program and receive a maximum of $520 an acre.

To qualify for the program loggers must have taken a basic chainsaw training program and attended a two-day, low-impact logging course, which MAFRI has been offering around the province.

“We want two landowner references from the loggers and a demonstrated ability to deliver lowimpact logging,” Tornblom said.

“What we want is to help the loggers on how to do it right and we’re going to be there during the logging process, especially during the first couple of times so that loggers can learn how to do this safely and follow what’s set out in the sales agreement. We’re coaches, we’re not enforcement guys.”

Woodlot owners can also do the logging themselves. If they happen to own their own sawmill the potential to make money from their trees is even better, Tornblom said.

MAFRI foresters will mark the trees to be harvested and verify that the logging met the standards set out in the sales agreement signed by the woodlot owner and logger. The agreement is there to protect the landowner and logger.

Tornblom expects much of the incentive money will go to the loggers since most Manitoba woodlots are in poor shape. In many cases there won’t be a lot of good lumber trees harvested. The focus to start will be on removing dead and dying trees, so better trees can thrive and one day be harvested for high-value hardwood floors and fine furniture.

There’s money to be made from woodlots, especially when the focus is on harvesting a high-quality product, Tornblom said. Unfortunately, a lot of woodlots are suffering because of a lack of management. Some owners wrongly believe leaving a bush in its natural state is good for it. But Tornblom said overtime trees get over mature, become susceptible to attack from insects and disease and die all the while holding back the development of younger trees.

“What makes it worse is it’s a lost opportunity – a lost resource,” he said. allan@fbcpublishing.com

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