10/22/2007
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Staff Photo by David LeamingStaff Writer
David Fuller recalls seeing a cover on a glossy, interior design magazine that showed a living room with a beautiful, hand-turned wooden bowl set on an expensive coffee table.
Inside the bowl was an artistically arranged collection of pine cones and curls of birch bark -- the same products that litter the forest floor most anywhere in Maine.
"People outside of Maine can't get these things. Here, they are a waste product," said Fuller, the agricultural and natural resources professional for the University of Maine Cooperative Extension based in Farmington.
Fuller is a strong believer in the potential of harvesting and selling non-timber products from Maine forests.
Maple sap, firewood and wreath-making have been traditional business opportunities that woodlot owners have used to augment their wood harvests. But there is also demand for edible mushrooms and tree fungi, moss, lichen, herbs, vines, shrubs as well as roots, tubers, leaves, bark, twigs and branches, fruit and resin.
The products are being used in the production of medicines; for food; in landscaping; home décor; handicrafts and art. Markets include wholesalers, direct sales, and farmers markets, on eBay and for personal use as gifts.
"This is not just about economics," Fuller said. "It is a part of Maine culture. People have been harvesting these things out of the woods forever."
"What I do is advise people on the possibilities they have on their woodlots other than harvesting timber for logs and pulp every 20 years," he said.
Non-timber forest products will not be a panacea for the struggling wood products economy and it is still an emerging science, Fuller said.
"It is like any new business -- marketing is number one," he said. "There are still people who scoff at the idea of selling things to use at craft fairs."
He points to the $40 million wreath and maple products industry in Maine and the market beyond Maine for what grows wild in the woods.
There are no statistics on the value of non-timber products being sold in Maine since much of the work is done on a small scale and paid for with cash, said Peter Lammert, the project forester with the Maine Forest Service.
"There is the potential to make money but it takes work," he said.
He said in the wreath business, woodlot owners are paid stumpage rights to sell balsam tips used in making 2 million wreaths sold in Maine a year.
"I know someone who had eight or ten balsam firs to take down. They got $250 for the wreath brush and $17.50 for the pulp. There is no question where the value is," he said.
According to the North East Foresters Association, forest-based manufacturing in Maine had a value of $5.3 billion in value of shipments, representing 36 percent of total manufacturing sales in 2007.
Maine has a total land area is nearly 20 million acres, with 17.7 million forested. About 36 percent of that is owned by family farms or non-profit groups.
More research is needed to determine sustainable harvest levels of non-timber products and in marketing, Fuller said. Currently, he is conducting field trials on increasing the productivity of pussywillows, a potential springtime crop for the floral products industry.
He is also the only one researching the viability of increasing the fiddlehead harvest, a spring crop discovered by the gourmet foods market.
He is also writing a book on the history of spruce gum in Maine. In 1990, 300,000 pounds of spruce gum were harvested for used in chewing gun and medicine, he said. It is now in pharmaceutical trials for treatment of wounds, bed sores, pulmonary problems and cancer.
Fuller is a resource provided at no cost to anyone with questions relating to agriculture and natural resources. In the past year, he said he has worked with 30 new farming families who have bought or are leasing farmland on what crops to grow.
The busy office on Farmington Falls Road next door to the Farmington Town Office also has an educator working with the growing numbers of 4-H Clubs, a nutrition specialist who does home visits with low-income families, and a new tourism economic development specialist.
In his small office, Fuller is surrounded by shelves stacked high with books and articles on non-traditional uses of forest land, a collection he did not have three years ago.
One section is devoted to a small display of balsam fir pillows, bottles of non-alcoholic spruce beer and maple wine from Canada, art made out of woodland plants, and antique boxes for spruce gum.
Birch bark is a sought after forest byproduct that is worth more than the log, Fuller said. It can only be carefully taken from trees scheduled for harvest in the spring since removing the bark will kill it.
Markets are veneer plywood, rustic wallpaper, cards, crafts and decorating. The stems can be made into containers and novelty items, the tops used to make decorative trees and the twigs gathered and sold as material for wreaths.
P. Forrest Tracy, a licensed consulting forester in Farmington, encourages woodlot owners he works with to explore using non-timber products as part of their forest management plan.
One landowner he knows sells stones from old rock walls in his woods to nurseries to augment his income.
"And if the rocks have moss on them, they bring in a lot more money," Tracy said.
Tom Doak, the executive director of the Small Woodland Owners Association of Maine, also sees possible potential in non-timber forest products. Cultivating and harvesting takes work but it gives people more choices to keep their land productive, he said.
"The challenge is finding the markets," he said.
Fuller said a common complaint he hears is that American-made products can't compete with cheap imports from China.
"This is the way. Tourists do not want to buy a Chinese product to remember Maine," he said. "There is a dearth of local, non-timber forest products being sold here and China is filling that void."
"We need to claim that as our culture and heritage," he said.
Betty Jespersen -- 778-6991
bjespersen@centralmaine.com
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This money making hoplessness is the direct result of thirty years of democrat rule!report abuse
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