James_Nov-Dec_2025_web - Flipbook - Page 59
t isn’t splashed across
the headlines, and
you won’t see breaking news banners
scrolling across your
television. But in the
piney woods of Georgia and across the
Southeast, a slow-burning crisis is
hollowing out the backbone of rural
communities. It is the quiet shuttering of pulpwood mills— the processing plants that turn timber into
paper, packaging, and fiber products— and it is proving calamitous
for thousands of working families.
“In the last 36 months alone,
no fewer than 63 mills have closed
across the Southeast,” says state
Sen. Russ Goodman, R-Homerville,
who knows a thing or two about
Georgia’s agribusiness as chairman of the Senate Agricultural and
Consumer Affairs Committee. And
it is an existential threat to rural
communities.
Georgia, the nation’s number
one forestry state, has been hit particularly hard. Goodman points out
that “just the recent four mill closure
announcements that have taken
place in Georgia over the last few
months account for over 400,000
semi loads a year that will no longer
be delivered.”
Think about that.
Every load was once the product of a chain of labor: the logger
who cut it, the trucker who hauled
it, the mechanic who serviced the
rig, the forester who marked the
timber stand and the clerk who
processed the ticket at the mill gate.
Those four closures alone erase
not just mill jobs, but the web of
ancillary jobs that supported them.
Behind those numbers are families,
mortgages, and communities.
As Goodman put it, “The loss
of the mill jobs coupled with all
the ancillary jobs associated with
getting those loads delivered to the
mills are pretty staggering. Not to
mention all the private landowners
who have lost market access for
their wood products.”
The reasons for this wave of
closures are as complicated as
global trade itself. Paper demand
has shifted dramatically in the
digital age; fewer newspapers and
magazines mean less consumption of traditional pulp products.
At the same time, competition
from overseas producers— some of
whom enjoy cheaper labor, looser
regulations, or even government
subsidies— has made it harder for
U.S. mills to compete.
Energy costs, labor shortages
and aging infrastructure compound
the problem. Many mills built in the
mid-20th century now require tens
of millions in upgrades to remain
competitive. Meanwhile, consumer
habits are changing. Cardboard
packaging is booming thanks to
commerce, but certain grades of
pulp once used in printing simply
have no buyers left.
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