A resourceful centre for forestry growth.

Saskatchewan is known as Canada's Bread Basket thanks in large part to our deep, rich, abundant, productive soil. And while there's no disputing the value and impact our agricultural land base has on our gross domestic product, it may come as more than just a bit of a surprise that in terms of quantity and quality, another resource--Saskatchewan's forest--is equally abundant. In fact Saskatchewan's 35 million hectares of forest actually eclipses our 30 million hectares of farmland.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Although there are many similarities between Saskatchewan's agricultural and forestry sectors, comparable contributions to the provincial GDP is not one of them. While Saskatchewan agriculture has long been a perennial multi-billion-dollar-per-year industry, forestry takes a bit of a back seat in this regard, contributing $750 million to the provincial economy at last count. Admittedly, $750 million is no small potatoes, but there's a whole lot more potential to be realized, and that's precisely why the Saskatchewan Forest Centre came into existence.

Coming off an April 1999 announcement by then-Premier Roy Romanow, this not-for-profit corporation was established in 2001 in a response to address and enhance the knowledge base for Saskatchewan's forest sector.

"The government realized a couple of things," offers Robin Woodward, CEO of the Saskatchewan Forest Centre. "One was, there was minimal knowledge capacity in Saskatchewan. If the industry is going to grow, just like agricultural sector, you need to look to a resource to help it grow--like an academic group, a consultant group, a business support environment that can help answer all of the growth-related questions."

"And one (answer to those questions) was building that capacity through partnerships," continues Woodward. "The Centre has over 20 people working here now. Most of them are contracted back to national organizations that are well-known and have been doing forestry-related work for decades but didn't have a presence here in Saskatchewan."

"So we haven't tried to re-invent the wheel here when it comes to mill analysis or productivity analysis, market analysis or sustainable forest management practices," he adds. "There are companies around Canada that are well-known and have got long reputations of doing very good work in these areas, so we contracted with them to deliver their services here."

Woodward truly believes that Saskatchewan has both the capability and capacity to build Saskatchewan's forestry sector to the point where it is as important to Saskatchewan's economy as are Alberta's and Ontario's forestry sectors to their respective provinces. But in order to do so, it is important that the Forest Centre work diligently toward its four primary goals of: creating a focal point for technology transfer; filling gaps in applied technology; developing niche areas of expertise; and, to build knowledge through partnerships.

This partnership model is evident in the board of directors that oversees the Saskatchewan Forest Centre. Among the 13-member board are nine members from the forest and wood products industry, while four spots are reserved for government representatives. Industry representatives are from: Forintek Canada Corp., Kitsaki Management, Nu-Fab Building Products, Ducks Unlimited Canada, Halland Forest Products, Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation, Prince Albert Development Corporation, Northwest Communities Wood Products and the Council of Saskatchewan Forest Industries. Government agencies contributing to the SFC at the board level include Natural Resources Canada (Canadian Forest Service), Saskatchewan Environment, Saskatchewan Industry and Resources, Saskatchewan Agriculture, Food and Rural Revitalization, and Western Economic Diversification Canada. Accentuating the success is the fact that the SFC has been able to attract and retain organizations that previously had little or no permanent presence in Saskatchewan's forest sector.

"This is reasonably unique to Saskatchewan," Woodward says of the Forest Centre's concept in comparison to other jurisdictions. "Drawing together funding from five government organizations plus industry and putting it in underneath an industry-led board of directors is a model that is unique."

Three work units comprise a large part of SFC's mandate; the Agroforestry unit, the Value-Added unit, and the Fire/Forest Ecosystems unit. The Agroforestry unit maintains an objective of broadening the economic choices and increasing the long-term wood supply by demonstrating that trees are a viable crop option for farmers and land managers.

As implied by its name, the Value-Added unit's objective is to promote new and high-value applications for the provincial forest sector, which would expand the provincial economy and create jobs. The Fire/Forest Ecosystems unit's objective is to preserve the long-term integrity of forest ecosystems to reflect knowledge developments that support improved productivity through constantly evolving forest management practices.

"We've got three technology transfer units and there's a lot of discussion around what is tech transfer," Woodward says. "But really what it is, is getting the right information out to the right person so that they can make informed decisions about their business and stay competitive in a world market."

Woodward says that there are many Saskatchewan-specific questions related to the forestry industry that need to be addressed, and the Saskatchewan Forest Centre likely has the answer to those situations. If they don't, he stresses, they will find the answer. "When these folks are out doing their tech transfer work we often find that there are a lot of questions around very specific problems," Woodward says. "There are things that need a Saskatchewan-specific answer."

"For example, there's one tree that seems to work very well, has been developed through the PFRA as shelter-belt tree, the Walker Poplar," Woodward offers. "It's one of several that seems to be proving itself very well that it can be grown on a mass-acre basis. Farmers and industry, naturally, expect to know whether this tree has a good fibre quality, grain quality and if it will be sellable to somebody when the trees are grown."

"We've got a development fund designed to answer questions like that," he continues. "So we went out and we harvested some trees from some of the existing shelterbelts. We put them through the test facilities at the Alberta Research Council and Forintek's lab in Vancouver and proved that this tree is an excellent tree for oriented strand board, lumber and pulp. Now the farmers know that when they plant this, there is good fibre that will be grown and there will be a buyer for it."

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

"There are lots of questions that need a Saskatchewan-specific piece of research done to prove tree quality or prove markets, or prove development of a new type of product by using Saskatchewan trees. So our forest development fund fills gaps."

Unlike other natural resource sectors such as mining and petroleum, forestry offers a renewable resource component to it. Everyone involved in the forestry industry in Saskatchewan, emphasizes Woodward, is doing so as a steward for sustainable development of the resource. Much like the farmer who sows crops each spring in the hopes of a bountiful harvest, Saskatchewan forestry stakeholders continually take on highly effective replantation efforts. But unlike their agrarian cousins, the turnaround time is several decades as opposed to a growing season of a few months.

Despite this elongated lead time, the Forest Centre is not about to overlook the opportunity agroforestry may provide to Saskatchewan's economy. "We are building a lot of that capacity ourselves because this is the spot where agroforestry is going to take place," Woodward offers. "The bottom line for this area is telling farmers how to profitably grow trees as one of their crops."

"We have had phenomenal uptake from the farm community around this," Woodward continues. "Everything from integrating trees as a crop with your other rotations, doing the cost estimates around what would it take to do the front-end establishment, carrying the costs over a 20-year cycle and then looking at the revenue potential at the end when that tree is harvested."

Woodward stresses that a key to the development of a vibrant agroforestry sector is uptake from interested groups as opposed to solitary producers. He stresses that communities could look at developing a resource in their own backyard as opposed to relying on the current location of the natural resource.

"We're working this through a community level," Woodward says. "So that farmers could potentially come together and plant the trees and when the time is right, work amongst themselves to figure out how to establish their own saw mill. The order of magnitude here is about the same as it is to put in a 5,000-head farrow-to-finish hog facility on the ground or a feedlot."

"So it's very attainable from a community," he stresses. "The jobs created are about four to five times that what you would see (from a hog operation)."

Woodward even goes so far as to suggest that the proactive communities where hog barns are already located may be prime candidates for agroforestry operations as well. He points to the complementary functions that the operations could provide one another; such as ringing the hog barn with trees, which would then act as an odor dispersal mechanism. Meanwhile the agroforestry operation could become one of the effluent disposal systems.

"Basically, put the effluent on the trees and fertilize them and water them," Woodward offers, "and you'll reduce the time to maturity for the trees and be able to dispose of a lot more hog effluent onto them because trees are phenomenal nutrient absorbers."

Another similarity to their agrarian cousins is that the forestry sector also realizes the benefits of providing value-added products, rather than shipping out raw commodities, and along with it, the jobs associated with the value-added efforts.

"Communities could make money off of a saw mill. Let's think about linking (agroforestry) directly to a value-added facility that will move your product through directly to market. There's no use shipping raw materials out of this province any longer; ship finished goods. That's what we're aiming for here, is link our primary directly through to the finished goods into market."

"One of the benefits that forestry has over the farm community is that you can't ship a raw log very far. You have to process it close by," he adds.

Despite international pressures, specifically the softwood lumber dispute, Woodward says there are many positives the Saskatchewan forest sector has seen over its recent history. "We're not sure where the softwood lumber dispute is actually going to end up," Woodward concedes. "All signs are looking extremely positive for the Canadian industry through the challenge process that is underway right now."

He points to a new saw mill put up in the La Ronge district by Brian Zelensky and a business plan currently being developed by Northwest Communities manager Darrell Misner at Beauval to establish facilities for both hard wood and soft wood use in the Beauval area and northward.

"And on the east side, Weyerhaeuser has put two of their facilities up for sale, so there's active development and questions being asked in that Hudson Bay/Carrot River and northward region around what's the best way to integrate all of these options around the wood volumes that are there; what's the best potential for mill design that could come out of those wood supplies?"

"There is a new oriented strand board plant in Meadow Lake, which is a $220-million-plus investment and all of the jobs and spinoffs on top of that," Woodward adds. "So things are under active consideration again and that's all very positive."

Another positive sign that the industry is heading in the right direction comes at the Centre itself. Its present location in Prince Albert is being replaced by a beautiful, expansive, $12-million facility on Central Avenue across from City Hall. Although the building is owned by SOCO, the Forest Centre is the anchor tenant and as such, the building represents the crowning glory of Saskatchewan's forest and wood products industry. It comes complete with local wood including tamarack flooring and birch board room tables, among many other unique species. The environment will certainly be conducive to continuing the highly valued and important work that the Forest Centre conducts.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The type of projects that the Forest Centre currently has ongoing range from doing a whole series of agroforestry demonstration sites, to reviewing the province's small-diameter black spruce to determine its most beneficial end uses, through to market assessments around the post and rail industry to determine growth potential, to determining the best way to emulate fire on a Saskatchewan-specific boreal forest landscape as per harvest planning. The results from these types of projects then get turned over to industry and government for them to utilize in whatever way they see most beneficial.

"Until the Centre was put on the grounds here, there wasn't a good focus for answering any of those gaps and there wasn't a means for getting information out in a real cost-effective way to the forest industry. So a lot of what we do here is finding out what is going on in other provinces or states or countries, and giving it to industry to incorporate into their sustainable forest management work or their business processes or their market design or their farm."

"We're really looking to establish Prince Albert as that focal point for forestry knowledge the way that Saskatoon has got it for ag and ag innovation, Regina's developing it for petroleum and petroleum extraction innovation, and IT," Woodward concludes.

"It makes sense to build Prince Albert as the knowledge centre and build a knowledge industry here focused on forestry, agroforestry and wood products."