Products, markets, trade

Third party digital service Kuutio brings together forest owners, wood buyers and other service providers in a digital environment. Kuutio.fi enables asking bids from wood procurement companies, when a private forest owner wants to sell wood. The service is developed by Suomen Puukauppa Oy, which was founded by all the major actors in the forest sector. Involved are Stora Enso, UPM and Metsä Group among almost all of the smaller saw mills. Kuutio is fully functional in any role of forestry professionals either through a browser interface or the company’s own forest system as long as it has been set up with a Kuutio connection.

Actual sales are made outside the service, Kuutio only acts as a go-between wood buyers and sellers. In most cases it is still required to do some field work and validate the information provided by system by visiting the stand marked for harvesting. All parties of wood trade benefit from Kuutio because sellers and buyers are able find each other more easily than before. The service utilizes public forest details from the Metsäkeskus database Metsään .fi and improves the functionality of wood trade. Kuutio paves the way to wood trade especially for those who are not the most at ease when it comes to taking care of their forestry property. Kuutio is targeted to all Finnish forest owners and they can use the service for free.

The proposal proposes to methodology for the evaluation of the economic and financial sustainability of the poplar plantations, incorporating to the most usual analysis of profitability, by means of the calculation of the IRR and NPV indicators, the perspective of annual revenue for the forest owners. The methodology seeks to lay down the principles of the economic aspects to bear in mind, overcoming the approach of the calculation based only on the costs and income for hectare and it was not possible to compare with other crops.

In progress

The analysis with this new perspective allows to evaluate the rentability of the activity and to compare it with those of other agrarian crops which can occupy the same surfaces. In addition, they have stable subsidies that increase their competitiveness in the agro-forestry areas. The proposal establishes for the first time the term "forest income" for consideration to the "agrarian income", with which shares many assailable aspects. The comparative one between the calculation of both incomes can be of great usefulness for the invest decisions on the part of the owners, managers and responsible administrations.

Scots pine wood from the Region of Pinares (a region located between the provinces of Soria and Burgos) enjoyed great prestige in the Spanish market, despite the fact that it lacked a common standardised basis among the companies in the sector that would allow  to launch a regulated product on the market that would facilitate its commercialisation.
There was also a mismatch between the quality of the product and the quality of the service offered to the buyer by the industry.
In this context, the first guarantee mark was created in the wood sector, the Guarantee Mark Pino Soria Burgos.

The main lesson learned is that the wood sector requires common marketing standards that make it easier for users to buy their products, eliminating confusion and insecurities that lead to a rejection of the use of wood. They also allow generating a mercantile reference to compete with the rest of products, whether made of wood or other materials such as concrete, steel, pvc…
It also allows for closer ties between the business and technology sectors, which guarantees continuous improvement of the business sector through both training and innovation.

This guarantee mark is based on three basic pillars: Guarantee of origin, sustainability (all forests and their processors are certified under the PEFC system) and quality (common marketing bases are established).
More than 48 municipalities and the Community of the 150 villages of the Land of Soria, and a total of 15 companies of first transformation of the wood, have joined.
On the other hand, we have managed to join a sector that until the creation of the Guarantee Brand was completely dispersed. In addition, its close relationship with Cesefor (forestry and wood technological centre) has enabled it to carry out extensive certification of its products (CE marking, PEFC, carbon footprint), training courses (cost control, structural calculation, wood treatment, etc.), and innovation projects (structural characterisation, development of new building systems, etc.). Currently, the companies of the Guarantee Mark are references in the Spanish wood sector and in the construction sector.

The operational group was created to find a demonstration action to promote secondary hardwood species of high ecological value in the ES5110011 area of the Natura 2000 Network. At present, hardwood harvesting is practically limited to obtaining products with little or no added value, such as firewood or biofuels in general. This is the reason why the profitability of the uses is very compromised.

According to the analysis carried out, it is considered convenient to perform the following demonstrative actions:
- To manufacture a children's playground of wood of local origin and free of chemical treatments.
- Implement new wood grading systems as is done in other European countries.
- Articulate the different agents along the production chain
- Demonstrate that quality products can be made from locally sourced wood

Improving the profitability of timber harvesting by diversifying the products obtained. As a result, the aim is to guide forestry exploitation to obtain quality products, enter into the distribution chain of local and specialized markets, establish a more efficient logistic distribution process and extend the time needed to capture atmospheric carbon by using wood for uses with a longer service life than bioenergy.

FAFCYLE is a regional union of associations from nine provinces in the region of Castilla y León. It was founded in 1992 and nowadays is supported by 6.000 members who own more than 500.000 hectares. The main objectives include among others the representation of the landowners in regional, national and European governments and institutions and the assessment in the management of members-owned forests. Since 2006 Fafcyle has been mobilizing the forest resources of the region by organized collective auctions for owners of poplars. They are offered an advisory service, valuation and sale. The auctions are public with the presence of a notary with conditions and contracts signed between all the parties.

Average increase: 26,16%
Adjudication average price: 58,37 €/m3
In conclusion, we can confirm the recovery of the poplar market and the increase in interest by our associates and the industry for the Poplar Wood Auction.
FAFCYLE and its member associations, are firmly committed to continue this work: it is important to jointly manage the uses to get on the one hand a good offer interesting for the industry and on the other, obtain for the owner a fairer price of the product with guarantees in the sales and use processes.

This system offers to the owners advantages like: transparency in prices and improving themselves, technical counseling, guarantees on sale, security in the payment and execution of the felling.
The process is done in three steps:
1. Stand volume and valuation: tree inventory, volume calculation, stand volume rates, calculation of market price by diametric class and finally valuation document for the owner.
2. Before the auction:  FAFCYLE and the owner sign a contract to enter to the join auction. After this, the announcement of the auction is made in provincial bulletins, mails to the lumberjacks; and visits to the woodlot with the interested forest industries.
3. We do a public act auction before notary. Where woodlots are adjudicated, FAFCYLE, the owner and the purchaser sign a sale contract.
Between 2006 and 2017 a total of 145,188.81 m3 have been adjudicated in 200 lots valued in 7,326,991.56 €
Year 2017: 33 lots with a total of 20.900 m3 of wood valued in 1.457.537€ ( 69,7 euros/m3)