Amanda Scott:
Can you tell me a little about who Quality Timber Traders are and how you came to be involved?
Martin:
Quality Timber Traders is really a group of timber growers, most of our group are people that are growing native rainforest cabinet timbers. The group started up as a result of the Farming Together program, which we applied for through the Subtropical Farm Forestry Association, we partnered with Southern Cross University.
Amanda Scott:
And how did you come to be involved?
Martin:
I’m a forest grower, I’ve been growing rainforest cabinet timbers on my farm, macadamia farm now for something like 30 years, so I’ve got some trees ready to harvest, had some at the beginning of the project. And I’m also the President of the Subtropical Farm Forestry Association, and I’ve been in that role now for quite a few years, over 20 years.
Amanda Scott:
Wearing multiple hats by the sounds of things.
Martin:
Yeah that’s right, exactly, a farmer, forest grower and Association President.
Amanda Scott:
And how about you Joe, no doubt you wear a lot of hats too. How did you come to be involved in QTT? And what other hats do you wear as well?
Joe:
Look I think we need to mention Carol Neal here, because I think that’s where the seed was sown with her. She ran an advanced operation compared to what we were doing in terms of housing trees up in southern Queensland. I actually joined her group; she had this system where she would help you manage towards harvesting for an annual fee, which was going to work really well. That connection led to us talking and us having a field day here in Eureka, you know way back, probably a year, maybe six months before the Farming Together program started.
So we were already if you like looking at that point at the idea of here we were a load of tree enthusiasts growing trees, but with very little confidence if you like in the idea that we could successfully harvest. So the expertise they’d put together up there in southern Queensland with a very competent saw miller was a really good start for us, and really gave us the material we needed to put in an application to Farming Together, you know that we knew where we wanted to go I think even at that point. So I manage the project if you like, bookwork and Zoom meetings, what other hats did I wear, I wrote the application and I quite enjoy that process.
Amanda Scott:
I could tell that from the level of detail with your reports which are always fantastic. What other hats do you wear though I mean outside of QTT?
Joe:
I’ve just come back from the Solomon’s, I was working as a volunteer there, I went as an accompanying dependent in fact with Jane my wife who was volunteering in the hospital in Honiara. But I ended up finding work on forest certification which was magic for me, because it’s actually the learning curve that we were–that they’re on over there is something that we need to be doing here if we’re going to successfully market our timber. Well we’ll talk about it later, but we do have plans now for a kind of self-certification by creating a chain of trust or custody from the grower right through to the end user. So that’s our next step, that’s still in the planning stage and we’re applying for more funding. Anyway later perhaps that should be mentioned.
Amanda Scott:
Yeah that sounds really interesting; we’ll come back to that. I want to take us back to the point of this formation of QTT, Martin what was the catalyst, Joe has spoken about Carol planting that seed for the idea, but in terms of the industry and the challenges that you’re facing, what was the motivation for forming this group?
Martin:
Well I suppose Joe’s touched on it, but it was an opportunity for us to finally–here we are with all these trees that are now getting quite sizeable, and the project provided us with an opportunity to bring a whole lot of people together in the same situation and learn how we can actually then harvest, mill, dry, grade and then market the timber. Carol had started, well they’d started some of the harvesting, a small amount up in Queensland, so we knew that there was a significant volume of timber around with the people up in Queensland and South East Queensland and our area. That provided us with an opportunity, it seeded that development of people having enough confidence by learning from each other and by getting in some experts, and away we went.
Amanda Scott:
So you’ve talked about getting in experts, how did you go about choosing the people to be involved in the project?
Martin:
Well as Joe’s mentioned the people from Queensland, there was Darryl Collins who was a timber merchant who’d already done quite a bit of milling and growing his own timber. We also partnered with Southern Cross University, a forestry program there, the key person there was Dr Graeme Palmer, and he was an expert in wood processing and wood quality. And a significant proportion of the funding went to the university to help us in terms of grading timber, in terms of harvesting and measuring what was harvested.
And then we held a few workshops where we invited people that were involved in different aspects of the timber industry and forestry, and they contributed in those workshops. There’s a lot of exchange of information and experience, a lot of our members had different experiences with all this so that was promoted. And then of course we had Kate, Joe’s daughter that set up a website, and that attracted more people and we ended with our Woodfest at the end which attracted lots more people.
Amanda Scott:
Yeah, which we will talk about definitely, because I know that was one of the great highlights of the project, and I went along to that and it was just such an amazing event. So I just want to go back to getting the right people on board or how you choose the people, because we know that that’s really important when you’re working together in businesses working together. So Joe would you say that you already had relationships already existing with most of the people you worked with on this project? And if so, do you think that’s something that’s important in going forward in this kind of collaborative partnership?
Joe:
Oh a bit of both. It was fantastic having new energy from people that you hadn’t contacted before, people like Darryl Collins, Alison in Queensland, who is a really expert hands on forester but also wonderful with statistics. She created an online survey of all our farmers, which I think was one really important step that happened quite early on. And we began to see the bigger picture of what they wanted, what the growers wanted, what they knew already, what was their level of knowledge, and the picture it drew was it was quite inspiring really, because it was obvious that they wanted what we were doing, and I think that was an important step.
So that’s one person, Carol was a driving force, and she also had a lot of background in marketing. I mean you can imagine tree growers getting to know how to fell timber, how to work the machines, they’re practical people, but marketing is something way out of our sphere, to have her on board was wonderful. Well obviously Graeme Palmer was having that connection with research, with the whole network that he opened up. I’m not sure whether it was him–but I’m sure it was, he used to be the head of the Salisbury Research Centre at one point, which is in fact where we ended up, where they organised a peeling trial for us with the Quandong, which is something which could work really well for thinnings.
Amanda Scott:
It sounds like you had existing relationships but also new ones were forged and some of that expertise within these different people was actually quite vital to the project’s success.
Martin:
Absolutely, absolutely.
Joe:
I think so. Yeah, absolutely yes.
Amanda Scott:
So talking about success and I’ll start with Martin, how would you summarise the achievements to date of the group?
Martin:
Yeah well the fact that we brought together a whole lot of people, more or less what we’re talking about now, I mean that was fantastic, because we’ve got the Subtropical Farm Forestry Association, but it had never really focused on the actual harvesting and milling and the marketing side of things. The fact that we brought people together and they got on really well together, we were able to demonstrate through what their experiences were, we were able to demonstrate to each other and to some of the new players that were just interested in what we were doing, that you can actually grow timber and grow these forests, planted forests, and within 20 to 25 years you can harvest some decent sized logs and produce beautiful top quality timber from it. So that was the main–I suppose what we thought our group did really well, was the fact that we attracted lots of people and we were able to show and see for ourselves that it wasn’t just Joe and I, there were lots of other people that were doing similar things. And they were succeeding in what they were doing, and there was an opportunity there now to collectively go ahead and harvest, mill, dry and market this timber.
Amanda Scott:
And for you Martin personally as a forester, what has this project meant for your business?
Martin:
Well you can imagine I’ve been growing these trees ranging from–I suppose the oldest were about 30 years old and the youngest are something like 10 years old, I’ve just been putting a lot of effort into growing them and I got very little financial support to do my side of it. I helped through a number of projects, I helped others do it, but because I was the President of the Association I wasn’t able to benefit directly from it, so here was an opportunity where I could actually get something back for these efforts. It was always the goal to produce sustainably home grown timber and put it into some beautiful products, and finally this enabled me to do that and to share that experience with others.
Joe:
Just to add something to what Martin was saying about harvesting these trees, we really want to emphasise if there’s anyone listening in who’s not aware of the need to harvest in a planted forest, and the fact that our planted forests are mixed species. Most of what we’re looking at here they don’t constitute exactly what a natural forest does, but they’re as close as you can get, and environmentally I think they’re probably the best planting model that you could possibly think of. But the issue is that after 20, 25 years fast growing species tend to dominate the stand, in effect carbon sequestration stops, if you look at the curve of carbon excretion in about 25 to 30 years it flattens quite significantly.
We’d really like people to understand that as much as they may not like the idea of harvesting rainforest species, we did grow these from seed ourselves, and the issue is that those locked up forests are no longer excreting carbon. We need to take out those fast growers, and if we can turn them into fine furniture which then that carbon you’ve harvested is locked up for another 70 or 100 years. We’re trying to get across the idea of we want to produce the antiques of the future if you like from our timber because it’s so beautiful. But also by taking out those fast growers and making a little money from them possibly, not a lot, but it’s part of the management, that allows the slower growing species suddenly to take up a spurt of growth and to start pulling carbon down again. Otherwise you just have to keep planting more and more land to trees to keep that carbon excretion going. Does that make sense?
Amanda Scott:
That frames it beautifully, thanks Joe. And so I guess for the group the idea that initially there was a lot of planting that happened a few decades ago, in terms of opportunity and goodwill to do the right thing for the environment. And now you’ve come to a point where in order to potentially continue to help the environment in terms of carbon sequestration, there’s an opportunity to fell some of those timbers and sell them commercially. But because there’s a small number of them and it’s quite select or specific that you actually need to come together to be able to supply, market, and supply and process in the quantities that are necessary to make a profit or at least break even and not cost a lot of money.
Martin:
Exactly, yeah that’s right.
Joe:
Yep, yeah to get the volumes.
Martin:
Yeah we need that scale to commercialise it so we need to come together with others. Because a lot our members have only put in an acre or a hectare or five hectares, they’re only small plantings on their own, and it wouldn’t be worthwhile to try and start a whole industry around the odd one. So it’s essential that we come together, so this was a good opportunity.
Amanda Scott:
And it’s the Quandong species that you’re predominantly looking at?
Martin:
Only because they were the fastest growing species. And earlier research had shown that even when they’re young, as young as even eight years old, but certainly by 15 years they’re big enough to harvest. You don’t get the full recovery that you do once they’re a bit older, but certainly by 20 years because they’re the fastest growing, and as Joe mentioned they’re tending then to supress some of the other species in the mix, it was the right time to come in and take out some of those Quandong. We also grew Queensland Maple and again that was a fast growing species, so there were a number of fast growing species that that forest itself, the planted forest, the wood stand needed to remove so that the other trees could get a go on.
Amanda Scott:
And look I’ve seen some of the examples that you’ve shown me of the furniture made with Quandong, and it’s an absolutely beautiful looking timber, really stunning.
Martin:
Oh absolutely. Yeah we had some competitions with that Woodfest event and people produced some magnificent things, and there was some beautiful art as well, some of the pieces were just a work of art. And that’s a young tree, you know it’s a fairly young tree, some of those trees that we milled were less than 20 years old, and they still produced some really top quality nice beautiful blonde coloured timber. And the Quandong is one of the few of our timbers that can bend 360° degrees, it can actually be bent without steaming, and it was used in boatbuilding and in masts and oars and bentwood furniture and things like that, so it has a long history of unique uses.
Amanda Scott:
Beautiful, sounds like a lot of potential, more people need to know about Quandong.
Martin:
Exactly, exactly yeah. We’ve started that process and we’ve found that architects are really interested, blonde timber now, light coloured timber now is very fashionable and there isn’t a lot of it. I mean there’s a lot of pine, but it’s not full of knots and it’s a beautiful light coloured timber.
Amanda Scott:
To me it would look very fine, light and just beautiful.
Martin:
Fine grained.
Amanda Scott:
Yeah.
Martin:
It has that light look [Chuckles].
Amanda Scott:
Scandinavian style maybe.
Martin:
Exactly, pretty much.
Amanda Scott:
Yeah. I want to talk about structure, because I know that one thing that we saw a lot of during the Farming Together was some of the different structures, groups put together, and some of the challenges that were had around working out what type of structure, and actually then drawing up the contracts to formalise that structure. And I wanted to talk to you because I know that you were looking at a joint venture structure initially.
Martin:
That’s right.
Amanda Scott:
So do you want to talk me through that, because I’m not sure actually if you ended up formalising that. And I’d also ask what was that process, how you went about looking at different structures, and why you made the decisions you did in the end?
Martin:
Well the idea was we were thinking of a co-op initially. We looked at the co-op or some sort of company, commercial entity, and then we had the groups, the Queensland group which Carol was at the head of, and we had our Subtropical Farm Forestry group down here. And we thought well we better formalise this since there was some money involved and some responsibilities. We set up a few rules amongst ourselves and things were working well, but we were still heading down this track of forming a joint venture.
We went to a recommended local solicitor who had experience in that and he started us off on that track, and we also talked to some consultants about it. And then we realised the expense of it and since we were working so well together already, this was a year into the project or so or at least a few months into the project. We thought well there’s a big expense, we are not making money as yet, so we just thought well this is something that can be put on hold, it’s not really essential to the project at this stage.
Amanda Scott:
So obviously you felt like the relationships were strong enough with no need to form any kind of formalised structure. Did that work well? And if so, how did you make it work well?
Joe:
Yeah it did work well, because this kind of tree growing isn’t a profession as such, it’s a bit more like a belief system [Chuckles] a way of life. The people who are involved in this aren’t–it’s not like forming a dairy co-op, we’re dealing with people who are very disparate in the way they nurture their trees and why they plant them in the first place. Some people are way over on the spectrum of environmental repair, others are much more intent on the harvesting side of it. So in a way a loose association seems to work because we’ve got very enthusiastic people, and I think the main thing for me is if you want to keep people together it’s all very well forming a structure and a formal organisation, but the key really is keeping people motivated. It doesn’t matter how good your structure is, if you’re not moving forwards it doesn’t matter what your structure is. Does that make some sense?
Amanda Scott:
Absolutely. And even in structures like cooperatives we often hear that keeping members motivated and or engaged is actually one of the biggest challenges. So regardless of the structure whether it’s formal or informal, that motivating people and engaging people is one of the most challenging things. Why do you think you were successful in that, and did you face any difficulties with people who weren’t engaged or involved, and how did you address that if so?
Joe:
Well I guess the only downside to not having a formal structure is that you don’t actually have a formal membership you can ask membership fees of for instance, we haven’t actually got to the point now of setting membership fees. You know we had the funding through Farming Together which was magic and took us a long way along the things we needed to do, that side of it, the idea of how are we going to self-fund for the future is an issue. Again I feel we’re looking at the moment at trying to set up an online marketing system, selling online, because this type of timber is mainly for furniture, it can be short lengths, we’re hoping to be able to courier it around up and down the coast to people who need it, to hobbyists, to furniture makers, I think that could be a reality. Once we get to a point of something commercial happening then I think we can ask the members to start contributing, in the meantime I think we’re moving ahead, but it certainly is an issue, we could do probably with a few more dollars in the kitty to get things done.
Martin:
Yeah I think we’re also lucky in the sense that the group that we formed–we kept the management group quite small, and then the membership, these are all mostly enthusiasts or people that are really aspiring to do this sort of thing, that had always thought about it, and might’ve had land and they thought oh yeah we should grow some trees for these sort of purposes. So we were pretty lucky in the culture of our group, we didn’t have any real problems. A few people dropped out, it wasn’t for them, mostly people are enthusiastic, supportive, so there wasn’t a need for a formalised thing, and we always thought well really it’ll come about once we start making some money. But to this point we’ve only sold very little of the timber, we haven’t really tried to sell it because we just want to get the right structure. We’re also spending a bit of time amongst our group making things or having things made such as doors and tables and windows. And now one of the bigger member growers are setting up a large–they’re commercialising the whole thing, and they’ve got a fair bit of finance behind them, and they’re setting up a large office which is totally fitted out with Quandong and a couple of other species that we grow. So we’re getting to the point where we’ve got something to show, and we’re getting to the point where as Joe mentioned this online thing, we’re feeling confident that we’ll be able to start marketing the timber. And once that happens then maybe we will form a co-op or some sort of trading entity, commercial entity, company co-op or a combination of those. We’ve got a few models in the region that started very small such as the Macadamia Nut Marquis Co-op, that started very small and now it’s an international giant in terms of macadamia processing and trading, and Norco the dairy industry co-op, there’s some good models around. So once we start selling some timber and once there’s money flowing I’m sure that we’ll have to formalise something, and it’ll most probably be a co-op with a trading company.
Amanda Scott:
Yep, so big long-term plans ahead.
Martin:
Well the whole thing’s a long-term thing. Growing timber as you heard it takes 20, 30 years so–
Amanda Scott:
You’ve got a long-term commitment from the start.
Martin:
Exactly, one of the earlier modelling that we did right at the start we were looking at 80 year timeframes.
Amanda Scott:
Wow, a retirement package.
Martin:
[Chuckles] I’ll say, well it passes onto your grandkids I think, that’s the idea.
Interviewee:
Yep.
Martin:
You plant these things and you envision they’ll be there forever and you’ll just be able to take out some timber as you go.
Amanda Scott:
That’s a pretty nice legacy to leave. Looking back at this point where you are now, what do you wish you had known when you started this?
Joe:
We had such a broad spectrum of knowledge in the team, that wasn’t an issue, and I’ve learnt a lot. The beauty of that short timeframe we had on the Farming Together program to spend a lot of money, galvanised me into a lot of interaction with media, Kate’s work on the website and writing newsletters, things I’d never done before. I’ve pretty much been a reclusive on the farm here up until now and I found–
Amanda Scott:
You’re thanking us for pushing you into new things [Chuckles].
Martin:
New areas, absolutely.
Joe:
Absolutely, yeah.
Martin:
I mean some of the things that we did, like we’ve mentioned we probably wouldn’t have wasted time on going to solicitors to look at joint ventures, the other thing is we did hire a couple of professional consultants or facilitators which we ended up finding out probably wasn’t worthwhile, but they were fairly minor things that went along the way. So you could wish we’d known that but–
Amanda Scott:
When you say it wasn’t right for you I think that’s a really interesting point for other groups who might be thinking of doing similar things, sometimes it’s hard to know what you need if you don’t know what you need.
Martin:
Yeah exactly, it’s a catch 22.
Amanda Scott:
It is. So do you have any tips for other people in terms of sometimes as you say it sounds like you had a really resourceful group who had a lot of expertise, but sometimes you needed to reach out to other experts. What kind of tips would you give people if they were trying to find an expert in a field?
Martin:
Well I wouldn’t go rushing off to hire expensive solicitors and things like that [Chuckles], I’d just pussyfoot my way through it initially until we had a good feeling. When you’ve got a group getting a few brains together you end up finding out that you probably know more than you think you know as a group, just go steady and small steps at a time, and you’ll gradually feel your way rather than thinking oh I’ve got to hire these consultants because they’re the experts. I mean if we’d listened to the experts as growers we wouldn’t have ever done what we’ve done, we were told by the forestry experts from the top that what we were trying to do was impossible and a waste of time. A number of them have come back and given us a pat on the back since, but initially we were told that you couldn’t do it. So we all just did it in our own small ways, and based on our own passion and interests we did it. So yeah I don’t know, Joe might add to that.
Joe:
You can’t blame people really for not recognising the usefulness of a new paradigm; nobody had really planted mixed species before. Forestry was always about plantation, forestry was always about monoculture, they possibly could foresee things like single tree felling, and these things actually have been a bit of a problem for us. It’s the learning curve to take a tree down within a stand without doing too much damage to what remains, so we’re still learning that. All these skills are what the old single tree fellers would’ve known way back, those old guys who would go out into the forest and just take the trees they needed and pull them out with [0:28:23.4], well that’s where we hope the future will be in our area and this kind of forestry. Our forests are there forever, they’re improving the soil and the environment, and they actually are very good habitat for wildlife. Yeah the people that Martin’s talking about, the forestry experts were of a different paradigm and a different era too almost in plantation forestry.
Amanda Scott:
Yeah, shaking it up.
Joe:
Hope so [Chuckles].
Martin:
Well yeah to some extent. I mean things have come a long way in the corporate forestry world as well so we’re all on the learning curve. But I suppose my point is we just started small and it was based on belief as much as experience and commercial drivers. You know there’s a lot of people that have got farms in our region, Northern Rivers and South East Queensland that are steep, and they can only really commercially utilise only a portion of their land, and there’s quite a significant amount of land that’s not utilised. This has always been a way of utilising it and really very little maintenance is needed, I mean we planted these things 25 years ago, and more or less left them alone certainly after two or three years or four years. We left them alone and they’ve done their own thing, now we’re coming back and doing a little bit of silviculture.
Amanda Scott:
So what you’re saying is there’s actually opportunity for a lot of farmers who have land that they can’t really utilise for anything else, to actually look at this as an option in terms of both environmental benefits, but also in terms of down the track [as a] potential alternate source of income.
Martin:
Absolutely, well certainly an additional income; treat it like superannuation or something that will pass on to future generations.
Amanda Scott:
I want to know if there’s going to be another Woodfest, because it was such a great day, and maybe you can tell me a little bit about the event and if there’s going to be another one, what that’s going to look like?
Martin:
Definitely. We were so enthused by the interest, and it was also partly the way it was designed, and again it was a joint effort in coming together and coming up with ideas that were a little bit different. So we had a design competition and it had different categories, and we invited new people onto our group to help us with this. People that were already cabinet makers and furniture makers, or crafts people or wood art people, and they helped us in that sense. And then we had people that came up with novel entertainment ideas and it just was very successful. We had very little time to organise it, in fact the whole project was–I think we would’ve done a lot better if we’d had a lot more time to run this project, but unfortunately due to the funding restrictions we didn’t, but considering we did really well. Anyhow, so we ran this thing and we ended up getting over 500 people, and I didn’t hear any criticism from anyone that attended, and they all said ‘you’ve got to do this again; you’ve got to do this again’. And we planned to have one this year and I don’t think it’s going to happen now with the coronavirus, and we weren’t quite ready for it either, but hopefully next year, we would’ve had time, and by then some of these other efforts that we’re putting our energy into will come to fruition.
Amanda Scott:
One of the things I’m really enjoying hearing from you both is actually the talk about combining both old knowledge with new technology and new ways of thinking and working. I think it’s a really lovely thing that you’re acknowledging the existing history of the timber and the people involved in the production at all stages, and then what the future could look like.
Martin:
Oh absolutely.
Joe:
Yeah.
Martin:
A lot of these rainforest timbers were used for so many different things, I’ve got some old books that go into the use of our rainforest timbers and it’s amazing. They made bearings out of them, they built very lightweight rooves and things, and a lot of that knowledge is gone, and certainly the practitioners involved in all of that are gone. So we’re resurrecting that aspect of it, we’re looking back at what some of those amazing uses were, and then we’re coming up with new ideas for lightweight use wood. And especially with climate change and environmental crises that we’re faced with, we’ve got to start looking back at how we lived before and how sustainable all of that was. We as growers can see that we can actually grow these things and improve the environment and make some useful and beautiful things out of it.
Joe:
Yeah, and just to emphasise that our membership isn’t just growers. Right from the start our membership has invited nurseryman, seed collectors, right through growers to planting consultants, right through to woodworkers and furniture makers, fine furniture makers, so our newsletter goes out to the whole spectrum. I think our buy line is ‘from seed to tree to product’ but we’re talking about a chain of trust from the very beginning, from the seed collector right through to the final end user. And that’s the basis for something I mentioned earlier about trying to work out our own certification system, so that we won’t need to go to FSC [Forest Stewardship Council] or pay the large fees you need to do to certify our products, we’re going to do it ourselves.
Amanda Scott:
For people like me who don’t know about what the certification process looks like currently compared to what you’re proposing for QTT, can you just talk us through and create a little picture for us about what this idea of yours could mean for growers?
Martin:
Yeah with the certification the idea is that we’ve controlled this whole thing, it’s been our own thing, we haven’t relied too much on outside apart from a little bit of assistance funding along the way, and we want to maintain that sort of ownership. We work closely with the experts, so we work closely with Southern Cross University and the forestry program there with experts there, and some of the other experts in the field. The idea now is to have an online course that our growers could do, and it’d be a short online course, and we’ve asked the university to work with us to develop such a course, because it’s basically what they’ve already got but we will just make it a little bit more user friendly for farmers and not such an academic thing.
So we imagine that three months, a day here every week or something like that as an online course, at the end of which these growers would be certified. Because they would then understand, and there’d be a practical [0:36:04.1] of what they’re doing as well through our membership. And then our organisation and the university we would just self-certify, we would say these people we are confident have done this course, they understand what they’re doing with their timber, it’s sustainable, long-term, and it’s been tested in terms of what it’s producing. We feel that that would suffice in us marketing our own timber, since we’ve grown it we should have the right to control the whole process, and of course the market will soon tell us how successful that can be.
Amanda Scott:
Absolutely. So when do you look to have this up and running?
Martin:
We actually applied for a small grant and a small farm grant last year and we still haven’t heard back. So it was only a small amount of money just to seed the thing, and we’ve also talked to the university and they would probably get a large portion of that money to develop this course for us. So if we don’t get that seed funding it’ll probably take a little longer and we’ll have to work a bit harder, maybe we’ll be able to sell some timber and we might get some extra donations, there’s some people in the pipeline that could support that sort of process.
Joe:
I think it gives us a really good summary. I guess one thing that I’m also hearing is these kinds of concepts can take quite a long time before they’re profitable.
Martin:
Yeah, sure, absolutely
Amanda Scott:
And so for groups like yourselves that grants provide the catalyst in terms of to start the initiative, but also other support to keep going and building to the point where you can be profitable and stand alone, because I imagine ultimately that’s your end goal.
Martin:
Well exactly. We’re a not-for-profit organisation as an association, and there’s no one here that’s trying to make money out of that aspect of it, we’re just trying to help our members and growers to sell their timber. We’ve got some bigger growers, they will probably lead the way as in other industries such as the macadamia industry, I’ve watched that grow from very small to an international giant, with those sort of people behind it. And they’re serious, they’re putting in hundreds of hectares of cabinet timbers and there’s a number of them, and they’re also spending some money on machinery and research. They’ve actually involved researchers from Southern Cross University as well, we’re making significant progress and it looks very promising to all of us.
Amanda Scott:
So what’s the ultimate vision for your group?
Joe:
I think the vision is that I feel that with good luck it could be a pilot if you like, and that if we can set up a way of doing things that works that it could be syndicated by other people. You know it builds a fair bit of experience now in taking people as I say who are tree enthusiasts through what is a difficult terrain into marketing, with luck I think if we can get there, if we can get over the finish line and actually get some online marketing going, that we could offer this model to others who might want to follow, use some of our ideas. Not to say they have to take the whole thing, but it would be good to be able to syndicate this if you like in some form or other to other groups if it’s successful.
Martin:
That has certainly always been our vision, we want to see more people growing trees and we want to see more people successful in terms of marketing them. We want to see the whole thing grow; as I said there are models that aren’t that different from what we’ve started, it’s just that forestry is such a long-term thing so we’ve got to allow for timescale. It’s been one of the difficulties we’ve had is the lack of time to do all these things, and money as well, but we’ve got the enthusiasm and we’re plodding on regardless as we have in the past.
Amanda Scott: Look it sounds like it’s been a pretty incredible and long journey so far, and there’s some really exciting things to look forward to in the future, so we’re going to keep our eyes open watching QTT. What have you learnt that has surprised you most about Farming Together, or in your case Foresting Together?
Martin: Foresting Together, well I suppose what it is is it’s a small amount of money, and the ideas of Farming Together we’ve always had that in mind, something like that, but it just took that sort of seeding to kick us off again. Because you sort of go through these waves of enthusiasm and ideas, we looked at co-ops and doing that sort of thing some years ago, and we did a pre-feasibility study but we weren’t quite ready, we didn’t have enough members with old enough trees. And Farming Together came along and gave us a little kick in the pants and away we went. These things take a long time and we’ve persevered and we’ll continue to persevere, and I’m confident we’ll get there.
Amanda Scott:
Yeah I think that’s all come through really clearly and really beautifully in your story actually, I think you’ve said it really well and done it justice.
Martin:
Good to hear that people appreciate what we’re doing.
[End of Audio Recording]
