Healthy profits from healthy forests: “We can have both,” according to northeast Iowa landowners who have formed the Prairie’s Edge Sustainable Woods Cooperative. It’s an old concept with a new twist. Individuals pool their ideas and assets to pursue a group venture that might overwhelm one person.

Several tree farmers launched the cooperative idea in 2001, after becoming frustrated with the complexities of marketing timber from small tracts of land. They also hoped to promote woodland protection and restoration. In two years, the coop grew to seventy-seven members with more than eight thousand acres of woodlands. The enthusiasm for the coop, even with a one-hundred-dollar membership fee, showed the strong commitment of many landowners to sustainable forestry.

Prospective members cited a host of expectations for the group, which was patterned after similar cooperatives in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. A brainstorming process resulted in more than one hundred suggestions for the Iowa coop including: a store or website to sell unique forest products, woodland tours, certification of wood that is grown sustainably, a code of ethics for loggers, pooled bids for tree planting and harvesting services, woodworking classes, and landowner education workshops.

To test these ideas, the coop commissioned a feasibility and marketing study by the Community Forestry Resource Center of Minneapolis. A fifteen-thousand-dollar Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture paid for the study, a promotional brochure, and four issues of a coop newsletter.
Despite the favorable response to the concept, however, Prairie’s Edge members were sobered by the disbanding of the Sustainable Woods Cooperative of Spring Green, Wisconsin, in 2003. That cooperative had embarked on an ambitious wood processing and marketing operation, but apparently incurred too much debt and was forced to close.

With a Rural Enterprise Business Grant through the Northeast Iowa Resource Conservation and Development office, Prairie’s Edge prepared a business plan to see if a northeast Iowa coop might fare any better. The study acknowledged the difficulty of joint marketing, manufacturing, or sales of wood products—but noted the potential of the cooperative to provide education and land management services. Accordingly, Prairie’s Edge has set its sights more on services to members.

A draft action plan proposed modest steps to get the coop on a firm footing, while providing services to satisfy old members and attract new ones. For example, the coop might contract for timber stand improvement (TSI) work, tree planting, marking trees for harvest, horse logging, custom sawing, or timber appraisals. A marketing consultant, paid by a Rural Development Through Forestry grant from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, surveyed forestry professionals to learn what services they could provide. Coop members would pay for the forestry work, with a portion of their fee going to the coop for administration.

Prairie’s Edge also has conducted or plans to hold workshops on how to do a timber inventory, tree seed collecting, forest wildlife management, winter tree and shrub identification, chain saw safety, raising shiitake mushrooms, and other forestry topics.

A next goal for the cooperative, which has been organized and run by volunteers, is to hire a part-time coordinator—perhaps using money remaining from the grant to prepare the business plan. The coordinator would arrange forestry services for members, plan educational programs, and schedule inventories of members’ woodlots. Those inventories by trained volunteers, along with management plans for cooperative members, would help determine the demand for services.

While Prairie’s Edge is still in the experimental stage, its members are determined not only to improve their woodlands, but also to make the cooperative a success. For example, board member Ron Berns of Monona has gradually acquired 210 acres of timberland over the past thirty years, and he manages another seventy acres with two other partners. One of his motivations is to prevent the land from being developed. That’s also a concern of other woodland owners who’ve seen the growing demand for wooded acreages for home sites and for hunting or other recreation.

Ron regularly works in his woods, cutting ironwood trees to provide nurse logs for a shiitake mushroom grower, harvesting mature or damaged trees to sell to a sawmill, and selecting lower grade trees for use in construction projects around his farm.

Board president Kevin Sand is a family practice doctor in Decorah. He’s been planting trees since his college days, and now owns several timber tracts, including woodlots that have been in his family for many years. Vice-president Phil Specht of McGregor, one of the founders of the coop, is a dairy farmer with a longtime interest in woodland conservation. He served several years on the Clayton County Conservation Board.

Board member Greg Koether of McGregor is a cattle producer who’s learned to treat woodlands with the same respect and care as crop fields and pastures. Unlike some livestock raisers, Greg and his wife, Kathy, view woodlands as an economic asset, rather than a liability.

Garth Frable of McGregor is a planner who has used his professional skills to help organize the coop and apply for grants. His wife, Teresa McMahon, an administrator with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, also has assisted with communications and publicity. The couple manages woodlands on the Clayton County farm where they recently built a timber frame house.

Francis Blake and his family operate an organic farm with three hundred acres of timber near Waukon. Rick Burras, a Decorah banker, manages eighty acres of timber on the farm where he lives. Mike Natvig of Cresco is an organic farmer who has used horses for logging.

Rob and Nancy Bolson of Decorah manage several woodlots on their family’s farms in Winneshiek County. Rob also operates a woodworking shop in Decorah, and Nancy is a special needs teacher. Harold and Deanna Krambeer of St. Olaf own four small tracts of woodlands totaling seventy acres. They’ve planted and harvested hardwoods, raised Christmas trees, protected a rare algific talus slope, and simply enjoyed the woodlands’ natural character.

Despite their diverse backgrounds, a strong common denominator for Prairie’s Edge members is the group’s motto: “Dedicated to improving the health and profitability of northeast Iowa’s woodlands.”