Farm Forestry New Zealand

The Small and Medium Enterprises committee

Hamish Levack, New Zealand Tree Grower August 2024.

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Understanding the implications of all this, a levy on all harvested wood was suggested as a solution to even out the disparities.The NZ Forest Owners Association along with the NZFFA ran an information campaign which eventually resulted in all forest owners agreeing to pay a fee on every tonne of wood harvested to help fund common-good work. As a result the Commodities Levy (Harvested Wood Material) Order 2013 was passed, now generally referred to as the Forest Growers’ Levy. It is necessary to renew the order every six years, and in 2019 a further levy order was applied for following a vote from forest owners. As most of you will now know, we are now in the process of planning for it to be renewed again.

Important distinction

Those who own at least four hectares of trees which are 16 years old or older, qualify to vote. In voting, each forest owner has to declare whether they own more, or less than, a thousand hectares of production forest because that determines whether they are classed as a owners of a large forest or a small forest.

This distinction is important when representatives are elected on to the Forest Growers’ Levy Board which controls how the levy money is spent. Owners of large forests may elect four representatives and owners of small forests may elect two representatives.These numbers roughly reflect where the money comes from.

To ensure the levy money is spent wisely, the Forest Growers’ Levy Board control how the money is used via a number of committees, each specialising in one area of expenditure.These cover biosecurity, forest research, promotion, training and careers, fire, environment, health and safety, transport and logistics.The Forest Growers’ Levy Board does not employ staff, but contracts the NZ

Forest Owners Association to administer the committees and provide secretarial services.

The committees have representatives from the NZ Forest Owners Association and the NZFFA, with co-opted members chosen for their relevant expertise. Each year the committees invite grant applications for projects, consider them and recommend those that should be accepted for funding.

The Small and Medium Enterprises committee

In 2016 Dean Satchel, then the NZFFA president, negotiated for a ninth committee to be set up, called the Small and Medium Enterprises committee.The aim was to identify issues and concerns which were relevant to small-scale forest owners and needed funding, but which might be overlooked by the other committees which are dominated by the growers of large forests. A few committee members have been co-opted, but most are NZFFA members including some from the Executive.

The committee is chaired by the NZFFA president and has had a modest budget of around $100,000 to $120,000 a year out of around the average eight to nine million dollars which is available from the levy each year. The current 2024 allocation of funds by committees is shown in the table on the following page.

Although the Small and Medium Enterprises committee has a relatively small budget it has funded several successful, or potentially successful, projects.
These include –
Timber harvesting in New Zealand: A guide for small-scale forest owners
Forestry extension – improving the access of small- scale forest owners to quality forest information

• Information to help small-scale forest owners at harvest time
• Equipment production studies
• Treefarmer web calculator to help small-scale forest owners plan a woodlot
• Geospatial wind risk analysis
• Abies grandis nursery improvements
• Stringybark trial evaluation.

The fact that the committee has such a small budget, a little more than one per cent of the annually available levy money, has disappointed some small-scale forest owners. Some are disappointed because their grant applications have been turned down, but others feel that because a large part of the levy is being raised from small growers, a similar proportion should be spent on growers of small forests.The question is then asked whether small-scale forest owners are being unfairly treated.

At every quarterly meeting, the levy secretariat updates the committee on all the work the other committees are carrying out.This allows committee members to identify anything relevant to small-scale forest owners which has been overlooked and would need funding. An example of projects that were passed to committees with larger budgets in 2023 and subsequently approved is $75,000 for the NZFFA to communicate with small-scale forest owners. Another example was $13,000 to work in partnership with Te Uru Rakau-New Zealand Forest Service on forest education and extension and funding to help with the Mystery Creek forestry hub, approved through the promotions committee.

It needs to be said that in general, all small-scale forest owners have benefitted either directly or indirectly from the projects funded and managed by the other levy committees. In addition, the large-scale forest owners have provided the levy committees with expertise, time and skills which the small-scale forest owners could never have matched on their own.

Where to from here

The role of the Small and Medium Enterprises committee looks secure because the needs of small- scale forest owners will always be different in some respects from those owners of large forests. At the time of writing, it seems probable that there will be a review of the Forest Growers’ Levy Board strategy as the forest industry continues to evolve and respond to changing pressures from the market, climate, society and regulation. Perhaps this could be shaped by a new national forestry development conference where all the affected parties could put their views.

Good results from the NZFFA’s point of view could be prioritising more money for forest extension work and outreach, the development of an updated geo-spatial database of all forest owners and the promotion of cooperatives of small-scale forest owners to achieve scale economies. If you believe there is a good cause that is being neglected, speak up now.We can try to get some levy funding for it in 2025.