Turkish delegation visit spotlights Indiana’s hardwood sector
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The Indiana State Department of Agriculture recently hosted a delegation from Turkey that got a close look at Indiana’s hardwood industry.
The ISDA said the goals of the delegation’s trade mission was to introduce Turkish buyers to Indiana hardwood suppliers, generate sales and establish long-term customer relationships, and expand market access and foreign business for Indiana forest products.
“They really like the way that the hardwood industry works here in Indiana, impressed with the technology that that’s utilized,” said ISDA Director Don Lamb. “I think the biggest reaction was the fact that they liked the people, and they had really good relationships formed through the visit.”
Lamb told Inside INdiana Business the visit showcased a lesser-known but incredibly important aspect to Indiana’s agriculture sector.
“It’s a $35 billion industry; the hardwood/lumber part of that is about $10 billion,” Lamb said. “If you go from logging to the finished product, [we have] about 70,000 jobs in Indiana in the hardwood industry. The [Indiana] Hardwood Lumbermens Association is really strong, and there’s just a lot that they do across our state for our economy that we don’t recognize.”
Representatives from eight Turkish companies took part in the trade mission, which began in Louisville and ended in Chicago, with visits to hardwood companies throughout the state of Indiana.
Among the businesses the delegation visited are Andis Logging in Paoli, Land of Indiana in Bedford, Tri-State Timber in Spencer, Cole Hardwoods in Logansport, Pike Lumber in Akron, and Holmes & Co. in Columbia City.
“The visit to Indiana was a great experience for myself and for the Turkish delegation,” Dila Ikiz, an Istanbul-based agricultural specialist with the USDA Foreign Ag Service, said in a news release. “Every person in the delegation thanked me after we left. I am confident in our efforts to create productive and long-term business relations with Turkey and the State of Indiana. The trip was very energic, positive and productive.”
The ISDA says Turkish businesses are using Indiana hardwoods in regional construction projects in the Middle East. The delegation members were focused on seeing and purchasing a variety of hardwood materials such as logs, lumber and veneer.
Lamb said having the delegation tour Indiana speaks to the state’s reputation for being easy to work with and its knowledge for exporting.
“I think we’ve we kind of punch above our weight for that part of of what happens within the hardwood industry is just following suit,” he said. “It’s surprising how much hardwood is exported. You think about hardwood, lumber, maybe it’s still in logs. It’s hopefully in lumber or veneer, getting put on a container and put on a boat and shipped overseas, and I think sometimes we don’t think about that process and how important that is, but we know how to do it.”
Indiana exported more than $167 million in hardwood products in 2022, according to the ISDA.
Lamb also credited the Ports of Indiana for contributing to the success of the hardwood industry and its exports.
“We can ship out to three different places,” he said. “Then you get into things like making sure you’ve got the right ways to handle containers, and the Indiana port authority has really been working well with us and with lots of other people to try to improve those situations, so we can ship things directly out of Indiana and not have to ship them across the country to get to some other port.”
While Indiana does many trade missions of its own to other countries, Lamb said having the delegation from Turkey come to Indiana was a great example of how good the state is as a host itself, which could drive even further growth.
“The Turkish delegation went from the south to the north and stopped in Indianapolis for a dinner, and we’ve got such good amenities here in our city,” he said. “We’re really good at hosting things. So, I think we can develop that more and more to invite other countries to come see what we’re doing here on the ground.”