Benchmarking operational conditions, productivity, and costs of harvesting from industrial plantations in different global regions

ABSTRACT

There has been a global increase in the demand for woody biomass in the last decade. The imperative to achieve the highest production per unit of land while preserving natural forest resources has expanded intensive forest cultivation in industrial plantations. The development of a global bioeconomy is expected to further increase the demand for biomass for material and energy use from industrial forest plantations. Efficiently planning supply from these timber sources requires up-to-date information on current harvesting systems. This study aims to provide an overview of existing systems and their performance in industrial plantations located in seven relevant global regions. Eight regional experts combined knowledge, supported by relevant literature, to create a unique database for benchmarking harvesting systems regarding their productivity and supply costs. Current mechanized systems can reach harvesting productivity exceeding 100 m³ per productive machine hour (PMH), while roadside costs range between 5 and 20 USD m⁻³ solid volume. Harvesting systems are modified continuously to adapt to plantations’ characteristics and industrial requirements in the different regions. Local socioeconomic factors and the historical sectorial evolution in each region significantly impact the selection of harvesting systems, mechanization levels, type of machinery, and resulting harvesting costs. Expanding plantations to more marginal lands requires further research on adapting agricultural/construction machinery to steep terrain plantations. International literature tends to represent large-scale, highly mechanized systems well. In contrast, fewer studies are available for characterizing small-scale systems, particularly in developing regions.

KEYWORDS:

• Forest operations
• productivity
• costs
• industrial plantations
• roundwood
• benchmarking

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge support from the Horizon Europe project ForestNavigator— Navigating European forests and forest bioeconomy sustainably to EU climate neutrality (grant agreement No 101056875).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/14942119.2023.2296789.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the HORIZON EUROPE Framework Programme [101056875].