Recent hurricanes like Michael and Idalia have caused tremendous hardship to timber producers, who lost not only their trees but in some cases also their processing plants, leaving them with limited markets even if they have trees to sell. Planting new trees won’t help older farmers since they typically take about 25 years before they are of marketable size, although they could help sustain the next generation of farmers if their families hold onto the land. Here is a story from the Tallahassee Democrat discussing the impacts of both the hurricanes and economic factors that make it hard to sell their trees.
