Minnesota Agroforestry Cooperative

Educating Growers and Buyers

The Minnesota Agroforestry Cooperative (MAC), a producer-owned cooperative, focuses on the economic gain and stability of the producer. Its goal is to collectively raise and market agro-forestry products for profit. The Co-op also aims to educate prospective growers about hybrid poplars and create public awareness about the advantages of agricultural fiber production.

In response to a change in federal farm policy, the Co-op focused its goals on the hybrid poplar in 1997. Before 1997, hybrid poplar trees were routinely accepted into the Federal Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) which assisted growers. However, in 1997, a change in the scoring system used to determine the eligibility for CRP, made it extremely difficult for hybrid growers to qualify for the program. Though hybrid poplars were no longer routinely accepted in CRP, the board of directors of the Co-operative still believed in the crop's potential and they created a business plan called the Producer Capitalization Plan for the hybrid poplar.

Benefits of Tree Farming

Trees are an economical and environmental asset to farms. They serve as an additional cash crop, grow on low-production lands, are used as foodstock to sustain established Minnesota industries and are also used for new fiber processing industries. They are a new commodity for export trade. Trees help:

• diversify farms
• reduce floods
• control erosion
• enhance water quality
• reduce sediment
• filtrate pollution
• store carbon
• provide wildlife habitat
• scenery enhancement

The Hybrid Poplar tree is MAC's first choice because it provides a consistent quality product that they say the "user can have confidence in." These trees can be used to make products for rural development such as saw mills, toothpick factories, furniture makers, landscape chips, poultry bedding, biomass energy, pulp for paper, and chip or wafer board.

Working Cooperatively

With the assistance of a Minnesota Department of Agriculture grant and assistance from the Agricultural Utilization Research Institute, the Co-op surveyed the Minnesota wood-pulp market, which now depends mostly on local aspen trees. "The pulp industry projects a shortage of aspen trees in about ten years," says Co-operative president and grain farmer Dennis Gibson. "Our talks with end users indicate that they will have a need if we can supply a product." The problem for the tree farmers is the lag time between planting and harvesting. "Farmers can't plant trees and then wait ten years for a paycheck," Gibson states. That is precisely why the Co-operative is currently seeking ways to pay growers while they establish tree crops.

Ultimate Goals

The Co-operative proposes to establish a fund to finance the diversion of at least 25,000 acres of marginal Minnesota agricultural land for hybrid poplar tree production. The fund will provide establishment costs, three years of maintenance payments, and will provide producers with an opportunity for advance payments on their anticipated harvest. This will allow an annual cash flow to help the producer with land taxes, and other annual costs, while also repaying their harvest gain to help relieve the tax burden associated with a ten-year crop. When the trees are harvested, the advanced payments will be retained by the Co-operative, returned to the Producer Capitalization Fund and used to establish more acres of hybrid poplar trees. The Co-operative will work to establish 2,750 acres per year for ten years.

The ultimate goal of the Co-operative, says Dennis Gibson, is "to pull together producers to grow 25,000 acres of trees--enough to sustain a small paper mill." The Co-operative is seeking funding for its Producer Capitalization Program. It is already successful in its goal of educating prospective growers and raising public awareness of agro-forestry. When the Co-operative receives the funding it requires, the Producer Capitalization Program will help diversify Minnesota's agricultural economy and strengthen the State's forest products industry.