Csf

[Scott G]

Evening all,

A prior discussion mentioned the formation of CSFs’ (Community Supported Forestry) that would follow the lead of the success of CSAs’ (Community Supported Agriculture). That idea has nagged me for the last couple of weeks. I think we really might have something here and the possibilities are exciting, to me anyway. Let’s open this idea wide and get some dicussion going about what people’s thoughts are. I would really like someone who has experience with CSAs’ to weigh in to give us some first hand perspective.

Looking forward to the input from everyone…

[goodcompanion]

I run a CSA pertaining to my bakery. The way I administrate and run it I could see applying to a lot of different areas of farming and forestry.

A typical farm CSA involves a share, for which you get a more-or-less standard offering. Such as, in a given week, one bunch carrots, one head lettuce, one bunch beets, one bag mesclun. This works okay for vegetables in season but less well for lumber.

My CSA is basically run on a simplified tab system. My customers send me a check for an amount of their choosing. Using a web-based account, a variety of goods can then be ordered on a schedule of the customers choosing, and my website deducts the appropriate amount from their account. When the money in a customers account is depleted they can no longer place orders and must send more money.

From my perspective I get a big master batch list out of the program. Then I know that on a given day I need to bake 12 baguettes, 19 batards, 25 multigrain, and so on. Later on in the production day the individual items are labelled for the customer who ordered them (e.g., john smith, one baguette, two multigrain).

For a lumber producer you could talk people into giving you a check for a lump sum to launch the system. For $100 a customer can have, say, 200 bf of softwood lumber cut to your specs deliverable all at once or incrementally on sawing days, perhaps once or twice a week throughout the year.

The sawyer would have the advantage of knowing that so long as the overall order was met it would all be sold the moment it was ready without any left over. If you got 50 people in your community to “buy in” to your wood csa at the $100 level, you would have $5000 advance in funds right out of the gate. You would also be equally able to serve the customer who wanted a little wood for projects here and there as the one who was building a house with this system, seems to me.

I am no genius with things electronic. But for what I was trying to do on the scale I was trying to do it, I kind of lapsed into accidentally creating this program (I had qualified help too) after banging my head against a wall trying to administrate a bakery CSA with variable, flexible ordering with only paper forms. If this really seems appropriate, I can elaborate, or even put anyone in contact with the programmer I worked with.

I really only know the lumber business from the consumer side, so bear that in mind. Maybe my e-model isn’t as transferrable as I think.

[Carl Russell]

I like Erik’s format. I have thought of something similar for firewood, but the problem tends to be in marketing, as people don’t have regular needs for forest products the way they do for bread or tomatoes.

My idea actually rotated around fuelwood, because I have so much low grade on the property. I also have a sawmill, but mostly I just take custom orders when someone wants some logs sawed.

I am trying to put together a system for folks to actually come and work in my woodlot, or on the landing as a way to offset the cost of their wood, saving me labor, and helping to provide me with inventory that I can either sell, or use myself.

I have been selling forest products into my community direct from the farm for years, and I have found that most people have periodic or one-time needs. I’m sure that I could improve this with a little more work, but it still feels more like marketing on per-job basis, and not really CSF.

Another idea that has crossed my mind would have to do with an association of landowners, linked by a shared forestry consultant, or harvester, to cooperatively amass their resources to be marketed through the use of a local sawmill. The problem is overcoming the centralized lumber marketing industry. It is very hard to get anyone other than the small-scale niche timber-framer to really look for any volume of local material, when they can just get the lumber yard to deliver 100 sticks any day of the week.

I generally need at least 6 weeks, and preferably 8 to get together an order of any size, and considering weather, kids, farm etc.., it could be more than that, especially if the order is complex. It has proven to be a damper on cultivating business.

I sawed out the frame for a small 16×24 timber-frame shed last summer. It was assembled by a local builder, and raffled off for a fundraiser. I was appalled at how hard it was to convince people that a $10 ticket was a good deal. And even though I used the opportunity to get my name out there, I haven’t gotten any more interest than was already there.

One of the differences with even the model that Erik uses is that our inventory is either still on the stump, or in round wood, but if it is already sawed then we already have a lot invested, and we need even more to respond to the custom order. At least with flour, even though there is a lot of investment in making it, there is a much faster turn-around from flour to the wide variety of marketable items. I am kind of stumped;) on how to turn this model from the sell from inventory model, to the CSF model.

I am loathe to spend much money on advertising, or marketing. My products already require a substantial investment to produce. At least I can produce with minimal outlay of cash, owning the land, timber, and harvesting and processing equipment, and the skills and knowledge to go along with it. Spending cash on marketing/advertising just seems hard to justify.

Carl

[Gabe Ayers]

Since we offered this approach from our experiences it would be appropriate that we elaborate a bit, although indeed some is yet theoretical and this is a great forum for such a development within this community of interest.

First, the approach should be inclusive of every product and many intangible values of being connected to a forest, the forests or forest resources in general.

Thanks to Erik for contributing, thoughts from someone successful are helpful.

The idea of a CSA includes connecting with the source of food as well as acquiring the food itself. There always seems to be a portion of CSA membership in fresh produce settings for people to have the option to come to the farm and be involved in some aspects of the food production. This could be the same for CSF.

Some people like being connected to the source – which is the earth and giving them that access is a value. Every major city has parks and they are just places where grass and trees grow and people like to go. The CSF could be an extension of that. That certainly wouldn’t mean every customer or shareholder, but would be of value to some.

I could see the CSF membership services including, lumber of all types available from the forest type, firewood, some finished products at a discounted cost to the member, Special Forest Products on a seasonal basis to include, edible gourmet mushrooms, nuts, herbs/botanicals, craft items and anything of value in an sustainable extractable form. Then the value of the eco-tourism aspect of folks just wanting to have a nice forest to walk in at their leisure and pleasure. This could be when work is occurring or at their will. It could include hunting rights with membership and of course education about the values of the forested resource and it’s ecosystem services provided for the public good.

Specifically we have sold furniture that was custom designed and built for customers who placed value on seeing the source and methods of production as well as the quality of the end user product. This included visiting the site to see the actual trees their dining room suit was made from, learning why they were selected and literally hugging the selected trees prior to harvesting and following the process all the way to the finished product, which of course ends up in their home and daily life. A photo album was assembled to accompany the finished product to it’s destination.

This entire proposal includes the DRAFTWOOD community certification system of having third party individual audit the harvesting to vouch for the standards and guidelines being followed. The completed product includes a plaque with the DRAFTWOOD brand burnt onto it and on the back, a complete listing of the source (practitioner), date of harvest of raw logs, sawyer, forest landowner information, processing stream, volume of logs and lumber delivered and craftsman fabricator that built the furniture or processed the flooring, paneling, beams of whatever was made for their needs. It also includes the signature of the auditor who is always a third party, but also a community member that volunteers to audit the process as a support of good environmental work. The main point is that this doesn’t have to cost the consumer any extra money in the long run of the end use value, yet connects them with the source of their goods and services.

Services could be included in the CSF membership. Those services could be fire risk reduction, firewood production, timber stand improvement and all sorts of possibilities for a forest landowner, just the same as a private forest management agreement. Skid trail construction could mean walking trail development. These trails can be a way for landowners to connect with the ongoing collection of special forest products beyond active harvesting or practitioner presence. All these activities may be integrated with existing governmental support programs through Natural Resource Conservation Service and other agencies.

This really could put a higher value on forestry services that address the objectives of many small private forest landowners in the eastern Hardwood forest types.

There seem to be an infinite amount of possibilities though such an approach.

We look forward to sharing and growing this approach as a means of accomplishing our goals, objectives and mission statement at HHFF.

Thanks for reading this and for everyone’s interest.

Salute,

~

[goodcompanion]

@Carl Russell 14258 wrote:

One of the differences with even the model that Erik uses is that our inventory is either still on the stump, or in round wood, but if it is already sawed then we already have a lot invested, and we need even more to respond to the custom order. At least with flour, even though there is a lot of investment in making it, there is a much faster turn-around from flour to the wide variety of marketable items. I am kind of stumped;) on how to turn this model from the sell from inventory model, to the CSF model.

Carl

If you have round wood available to saw, couldn’t you more or less cut what you had available to efficiently meet the orders on your batch list? I could see a batch list that a web-based ordering program would generate looking like this:

hemlock batch list

540 bf 2 x 4, 8′ lengths
410 bf 2 x 4, 12′ lengths
64 bf 2 x 4, 16′ lengths
442 bf 2 x 6 x 12′
144 bf 4 x 6 x 12′
__________________

1600 bf x $.50 = $800

white oak batch list

200 bf 4/4 x 6′-8′
160 bf 4/4 x 10′-12′
320 bf 6/4 x 6′-8′
_________________
680 bf x $2 = $1360

Total hemlock and white oak = $2160

Bear in mind I am pulling numbers out of thin air. If any of you sawmill operators would like to tell me how to organize my bakery operations I am sure I would find that plenty annoying. So my apologies for really knowing rather little about how exactly it works.

Anyway, those two batch orders for two different species might consist of dozens of individual orders, which you wouldn’t need to sort out until the cutting was done and ready for delivery.

[lancek]

I’m perplexed with this one although I see where great things happen with this idea this would entail a lot of marketing. You have four major groups that are involved in this there is the furniture and architectural group the end consumer and the government! I think the cabinet and architectural groups would be the easy st to target and they would bring on the end user!
I think this would also require a separate web site doing it on just a local level would be pretty hard Tim

[Carl Russell]

Oh, how much do I need to know about flour:p.

This is a reasonably good idea on the surface, but what if I don’t have white oak logs at the mill, or I have lots of hemlock, but not the lengths they are looking for, and the logs are on the deck, or taking up room in the yard? I can’t keep lumber around for ever either waiting to be cut into desirable products.

This is the whole inventory problem. Got to have enough to respond, but can’t have too much just sitting around waiting for a customer. If they are on the stump, then I can custom cut to order, but then here comes the time factor, which is not a problem for the right customer, but it narrows the market.

I don’t mean to just offer obstacles, it’s just working out these details can be difficult.

Carl

[goodcompanion]

@Carl Russell 14264 wrote:

Oh, how much do I need to know about flour:p.

This is a reasonably good idea on the surface, but what if I don’t have white oak logs at the mill, or I have lots of hemlock, but not the lengths they are looking for, and the logs are on the deck, or taking up room in the yard? I can’t keep lumber around for ever either waiting to be cut into desirable products.

You could manipulate the ordering program to black out the unavailable items in a given ordering cycle. You could also move stagnant product by making it available to order at a reduced rate. Part of the goal is to encourage clients to buy something they will need eventually, and take it off your hands now.

I send a “reminder email” prior to each ordering cycle to my entire clientele, in which I tell them about our specials. The email also serves to give the membership general news about how my operation is running, maybe even asking for help with certain problems or projects. If it goes out to enough parties you get the response you need. People that are interested enough to “buy in” to your program will probably stay tuned to that stream of news even if they don’t reply or even order for weeks at a time.

@Carl Russell 14264 wrote:

This is the whole inventory problem. Got to have enough to respond, but can’t have too much just sitting around waiting for a customer. If they are on the stump, then I can custom cut to order, but then here comes the time factor, which is not a problem for the right customer, but it narrows the market.
Carl

If your CSF is big enough, orders will probably tend to be pretty uniform over time, with predictable spikes for, perhaps, firewood season and prime building season. Also, if you had a good block of time to custom cut (with your ordering deadline set maybe one week prior to delivery) that might help.

I think this concept would be a cinch to market (says the baker, right?). Go up to your existing customers, or anyone else who might use your product, and ask them how much they spend on forest products in a given year (I spend maybe 2k with all the repairs I am doing). Suggest a starting membership for half that amount. If they don’t use up the credit in their account, you can refund it or roll it into the next year.

The customer would get–

1.The intangibles of promoting your superior practices
2.A slightly reduced rate over retail
3.A connection with an individual who provides a concrete item they need
4.Access to specials when available.
5.A window to material involvement in your operation when appropriate (I often “pay” people for help or favors with bread credits).

[Gabe Ayers]

Well I certainly don’t know all about how a CSA works, but bet there are all sorts of variations on the approach of marketing sustainable products to consumers. This is just a working group sort of setting for discussions. I originally made the CSF analogy because our custom orders of DRAFTWOOD forest products requires a 50% deposit to accept the order, which sort of seems like the CSA approach.

It would seem necessary that the members of a CSF would have a common need from the forests, which could be firewood. This would be the potatoes of the CSA analogy. There would be a certain amount of firewood available from the membership which would justify the purchase of a share.

From there the availability of other forest products would have to be within the capacity of the farmer, forester, logger, biological woodsman or whatever the producer is called. That capacity would have to be principled to be truly sustainable forestry from the onset.

I have to say that most of the successful CSA folks growing food also have markets for their produce other than their membership. This would surly be a need for a forestry equivalent. Since we are proposing to harvest what needs to be harvested while we are on a site, there has to be some way of turning that material into money and often that may be other than the markets defined by CSF membership. We will still have to sell into conventional markets to keep the day to day operations going if you are logging for a living full time. Maybe there is a case for combining the two interests and CSA folks offering a CSF product line?

An issue of CSF so accurately brought up by Carl is that of “owning the inventory”. I appreciate his perspective of having the inventory being a living system of a forest and standing timber, this is where we are. Creating an economic opportunity based on access and ability to produce on demand, “just in time” is exactly what we do all the time for custom orders. It is almost impossible for a ground level worker to be able to afford to add value to all the goods they can produce in raw log form. Although it is an investment in their own worth it is one hardly affordable for day to day hand to mouth operations like most of us are. I completely understand. This is what leads to the need to have up front money to pay for the cost of this value adding and it would be great if it came from the end user.

But people don’t need lumber and forest products daily like they do bread or food. So there are many gaps yet to be bridged in this analogy of CSA and CSF, but we have good thinkers and doers on this forum and it is a great place to discuss it.

The ability to value add or process the raw logs to lumber does have the advantage of putting a raw material into a condition of increasing value by drying while stacked, stickered and covered. As it drys it becomes more valuable with the only cost being that of owning the cost of getting it to that point and serving the debt (surviving) while it awaits a market.

Hard nut to crack, but a real goody inside if we can hit it square without mashing our fingers.

[Scott G]

Great input folks! This is what I was hoping for.

I would envision either 1) those of us that “own” forests could operate them as a CSF and/or 2) we would somewhat follow Jason’s model of DraftWood, working with landowners to produce sustainably harvested wood products and are interested in operating a CSF model.

To Carl’s point. Like a CSA, a CSF would not necessarily have all types of forest products available all the time. A CSA may not be producing a certain type of food crop this year but maybe the next. A CSF might not be harvesting white oak sawlogs this year, but maybe the next.

Products that I could think of locally in my region right off the bat would be:

-firewood
-x-mas trees
-boughs for wreaths, etc..
-posts/poles
-sawtimber that is value-added into roughsawn or secondary products such as T&G paneling, etc.. (this could involve other trades folks and craftsment in the community other than the land owner or timber harvester. Think local community economic value)

I think Jason hit it right on the nose when he mentioned non-timber assets that have high value. Examples would be:

– day use (picnics, meditation, etc..)
-limited use camping (The lure of having a limited, private, secluded, day use or camping area to get away from the masses is huge for some folks.)
-private birding/wildlife viewing area
-shroom gathering and other valued native plants
-seedlings for outplanting

The list would vary by region. Following the CSA model some people like to get their hands dirty and get personally involved in what they consume. I can’t tell you how enthused I would be to have folks pile slash for credit towards forest products like firewood.

In short, peoples direct connection to their consumption, using sustainbly managed and harvested products would be very appealing to alot of people. Just as it is with a CSA model.

[Carl Russell]

This is all starting to take shape for me.

It would definitely require more strategic planning and outreach, but rather than having members that are paying dues all the time, have members that are interested in supporting and knowing about the opportunities. Possibly a nominal fee to be on the contact list to cover expenses???

I haven’t quite gotten to the place where I can wrap my head around the non-tangible eco-tourism part. I kind of like my privacy, although we have people coming around here all the time anyway. It’s definitely worth more thought. I mean I totally get the value, I just can’t see how I would want to market it/them. I suppose for the base membership people could be given an open invitation to use our skid trails for XC Skiing, or snowshoeing, or to come by and help out with chores, milking weeding etc.
I can see combining some of the farm products with all of this too.

I like the idea of having a core product like fuelwood, that I can produce daily, that can be taken right to the finished product regardless of whether there are any orders. I could pre-sell to enough customers for say 30-50 cords, and use that as the income base for the CSF. Then as I see myself getting into the hemlock in a month or so, I could advertise for orders.

Erik, how did you amass your master list? Was that from visits at farmers markets? Or some other manner? I could definitely see us all using this site to some degree, and we have a blog, and there’s facebook etc.., but I hadn’t really thought about that type of membership/outreach process. I can see that working.

It’s funny how long I’ve kicked these ideas around in my own head, but all I needed was to get a few other points of view. I tend to spend too much time in my own little world…..but they all know me here:eek:. There is definitely a rush of new thoughts.

Carl

[Does’ Leap]

I wanted to offer that marketing forest products through a CSA doesn’t necessarily have to be a stand-alone operation. I have no interest in running a CSA with all of the management and advertising. However, I am interested in selling my product at top dollar and having a connection with the consumer. Our solution has been to offer our products through other CSAs. They do all of the advertising and management and we simply offer our product as an add-on. The CSA benefits by having a diversity of products (which could include forest products) and the producer benefits through higher prices. For their work, we give the CSA 10% of gross sales. We market over 3000 lbs of cheese through a number of CSAs this way with essentially no marketing time or additional labor. We are not capturing 100% of the final price but it is a lot better than 50-60% that we get from selling in stores. Out of all the venues we use to sell our cheese (stores, restaurants, farmer’s market) the CSAs are the best. We still need the other venues to make a living, but CSAs are by far the best for us. So maybe check out your local CSAs and see if they might be interested in offering your products. Good thread!

George

[Gabe Ayers]

~

The diversity of community members involved combined with a diversity of products makes the entire approach stronger and more like to yield consistently.

We do sell our special forest products through our local CSA. Same as George, I don’t want to go to the farmers market or to the back door of multiple restaurants, I especially since we know someone that is already doing that. We try to take what they can give me within reason of what it is work retail or at the end user, similar to the cheese numbers I guess.

All our value added products are made in the community by neighbors, all the kiln drying is done in the community, so much more of the money stays here, thereby building a larger constituency for the best care of the forest for every day people.

It is the collected production of all our BWM that constitute our inventory, makes us much more flexible to orders.

These are all principles of our group from the onset.

This is a good thread.

~

[lancek]

Well this takes me back to my original thoughts on dafi by setting up a net work to draw from, then certain spices and inventory could be controlled ! By having a central clearing house of members, if an orded came in for white oak and a certain mill did not have enough to fill that order the another mill near by could fill the rest!
Or you could do a pull type ordering system that dose not require you to keep a large inventory this is a system that is being taught in seminars all over the country! And Carl yes this mean s that you would have to make some people wait but most get past this if you explain to them that it will save mony in the long run because you dont have to carry a large inventory!

[goodcompanion]

@Carl Russell 14281 wrote:

Erik, how did you amass your master list? Was that from visits at farmers markets? Or some other manner? I could definitely see us all using this site to some degree, and we have a blog, and there’s facebook etc.., but I hadn’t really thought about that type of membership/outreach process. I can see that working.

I got my master list from farmers markets, and from doing a few tastings elsewhere. We had a bunch of media coverage at one point and I was able to piggyback advertising for the tastings on top of it. That generated a lot of customers.

Once someone is on the list they get the weekly news until they ask to be taken off. I figure there is always a chance that even if their account is sitting empty that they will come around and renew their subscription.

The actual e-mail I send out to the membership is really brief but contains a link to my site’s member page:

http://www.goodcompanionbakery.com/memberpage.html

I try to put a new picture in every week and put the bulk of the news and specials on my website rather than in the e-mail. It takes me about 1/2 hour per week to do the administration for the site and orders.

[Author]

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