{"id":313,"date":"2011-09-19T12:50:53","date_gmt":"2011-09-19T18:50:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/?p=313"},"modified":"2011-09-18T19:21:25","modified_gmt":"2011-09-19T01:21:25","slug":"wood-products-looking-for-growth-in-old-places","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/2011\/09\/19\/wood-products-looking-for-growth-in-old-places\/","title":{"rendered":"Wood Products: Looking for Growth in Old Places"},"content":{"rendered":"

Idaho’s timber industry is another example of a sector that’s been a main-stay of the area economy since the state lines were drawn.\u00a0 Like mining, it’s seen big declines over the last couple of<\/p>\n

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Tom Brakefield \/ Getty Images<\/p>

Stacked wood in a lumber yard at an Idaho sawmill<\/p><\/div>\n

decades.\u00a0 Idaho’s wood products industry is driven by lumber demand, which is a function of the housing market.\u00a0 The state Division of Financial Management is predicting<\/a> incremental increases in both sectors of the economy starting this year.\u00a0 The DFM’s 2011 forecast said housing starts will increase 30 percent this year, 55 percent in 2012, 16.4 percent in 2013 and 13 percent in 2014.\u00a0 As those starts pickup, so too will the demand for lumber.<\/p>\n

“This anticipated strong demand will act as a countervailing force to supply factors that have exerted relentless downward pressures on logging and wood products employment.” – Derek Santos, Economist, Division of Financial Management<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jay O’Laughlin is the Director of the Idaho Forest Wildlife and Range Policy Analysis Group<\/a> at the University of Idaho.\u00a0 He said the key question is how long will it take for the state to work through its housing “overbuild.” “It will be more than a year,” said O’Laughlin, “less than five years, I’m confident of that.”<\/p>\n

O’Laughlin ranks Idaho’s timber industry in second place, behind agriculture, as the most important driver in the state’s natural resource wheelhouse.<\/p>\n

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Joel Sartore \/ Getty Images<\/p>

Logging near Salmon, Idaho<\/p><\/div>\n

“Let me put it this way.\u00a0When we look across all 50 states there are only three states that depend more on the economic output of the forest products industry than Idaho…Oregon, Mississippi and Maine,” said O’Laughlin.<\/p>\n

But if people aren’t building new houses or businesses, how can the industry grow?<\/p>\n

O’Laughlin said it’s because Idaho’s forests are sustainable.\u00a0 In other words, there will always be trees here.<\/p>\n

“The opportunities are there to build with other things, steel, aluminum, with brick or stone — but all the other resources besides timber and wood products require more energy to produce.” – Jay O’Laughlin<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Idaho’s timber industry is another example of a sector that’s been a main-stay of the area economy since the state lines were drawn.\u00a0 Like mining, it’s seen big declines over the last couple of decades.\u00a0 Idaho’s wood products industry is driven by lumber demand, which is a function of the housing market.\u00a0 The state Division […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":316,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13],"tags":[55,40,52],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":324,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313\/revisions\/324"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}