AgBioResearch

2027 Research Priorities

1. Evaluate and Modernize Forest Property Tax Incentives to Keep Forests as Forests

Justification:

Property taxes and the financial pressures associated with owning forestland can significantly influence whether family forest owners retain, actively manage, parcel off, develop, or sell their land.  Michigan currently offers forest property tax programs, including the Commercial Forest and Qualified Forest Programs, but participation, requirements, benefits, and effectiveness vary considerably.

MFA recommends a comprehensive national review of successful forest property tax and other landowner incentive programs used by states to retain private forests and encourage sustainable forest management.  Research should compare program structure, enrollment, tax treatment, management requirements, administrative burden, landowner participation, forest-retention outcomes, and costs and benefits to state and local governments.

The research should identify features that could strengthen Michigan's existing programs or inform new approaches, with particular attention to making programs understandable, accessible, and financially meaningful for family forest owners.

Expected Impact:
Identification of proven approaches that Michigan could adopt or adapt to increase participation in sustainable forest management, and reduce forest fragmentation and conversion. 

2. Develop a Digital Tool to Connect Family Forest Resources with Wood Markets

Justification:
Many family forest owners possess marketable timber but lack an efficient way to understand where demand exists for the species, products, and volumes available on their property.  At the same time, mills and other forest-product businesses need reliable supplies of particular species, grades, products, and volumes.

MFA recommends research into the feasibility and design of a digital forest resource to market matching system.  Such a tool could allow landowners or their consulting foresters to enter information from a forest management plan, timber inventory, or planned harvest and identify potentially appropriate markets.

Research should examine existing software and market-matching systems in forestry, agriculture, and other natural-resource sectors; determine what information mills and landowners would need; address confidentiality and data ownership concerns; and evaluate whether artificial intelligence or other emerging technologies could improve matching and market intelligence.

The system should complement and not aim to replace the role of professional foresters in timber appraisal, sale preparation, and marketing.

Expected Impact:
Improved connections between family forest owners, professional foresters, loggers, and wood-using industries; greater utilization of timber; and potentially stronger markets for currently underutilized species and lower value material. 

3. Identify Barriers Preventing Family Forest Owners from Implementing FMPs

Justification:
A forest management plan does not necessarily result in forest management on the ground.  Family forest owners frequently encounter barriers including treatment costs, limited contractor availability, uncertainty about financial returns, lack of markets for low-value material, complexity of financial-assistance programs, and difficulty navigating from management recommendation to completed practice.

Michigan's Forest and Water Fund provides a unique opportunity to study these barriers while financial assistance is being offered for practices including forest health treatments, ecological tree planting, invasives control, and prescribed fire.

MFA recommends research using Forest and Water Fund applicants and participants, where appropriate and with appropriate privacy protections, to examine which factors cause landowners to pursue, delay, modify, or abandon recommended forest management activities.  Research should evaluate which combinations of financial assistance, technical assistance, professional support, outreach, and contractor availability are most successful in moving landowners from intention to implementation.

Expected Impact:
Better designed forestry assistance programs, increased implementation of sustainable forest management practices, improved use of public conservation investments, and practical recommendations that MFA, MSUE, MDNR, MACD, consulting foresters, and other partners can use to increase landowner participation.

4. Measure the Forest, Water, and Economic Outcomes of Financial Assistance

Justification:
Significant public resources are being invested in helping private forest owners implement conservation and forest management practices, yet Michigan would benefit from stronger information demonstrating the outcomes produced by those investments.

Using the Forest and Water Fund as a potential research platform, MSU could develop methods for measuring the environmental and economic benefits associated with practices implemented on private forests.  Research could examine outcomes such as improved forest health and resilience, invasive species control, successful regeneration, wildfire risk reduction, carbon retention, habitat improvements, water quality benefits, and economic activity generated through forestry contractors and local businesses.

Research should explore practical methods for communicating these benefits to landowners, policymakers, funding agencies, and the public.

Expected Impact:
Quantifiable evidence of the return generated by investments in private forest management and policymaker understanding of the benefits provided by actively managed private forests. 

5. Understand What Motivates Family Forest Owners to Keep, Manage, and Transfer Forestland

Justification:
Michigan's family forests face long-term pressures from ownership transitions, parcelization, development, rising land values, changing landowner objectives, and generational transfer.  Forest retention strategies will be most effective when they reflect the actual motivations and constraints of landowners.

MFA recommends research examining the economic and non-economic factors influencing decisions to retain, manage, sell, subdivide, conserve, or transfer family forestland.  Particular attention should be given to generational transfer and identifying interventions that could help families successfully pass intact, managed forests to subsequent generations.

Research should evaluate the effectiveness of tools such as property tax incentives, conservation easements, estate planning education, management assistance, cost-share programs, peer networks, and recognition programs.

Expected Impact:
Improved programs and outreach that help families retain forestland across generations, reduced parcelization and conversion, and better targeting of public and nonprofit investments toward the factors most likely to keep Michigan's private forests as forests. 

6. Develop Tools That Translate Forest Management Plans into Landowner Action

Justification:
Forest management plans contain valuable technical information, but many family forest owners struggle to translate recommendations into a practical sequence of actions: what should happen first, what will it cost, who can perform the work, whether financial assistance is available, what permits or legal requirements are involved, and whether the activity could generate revenue.

MFA recommends the development of tools that convert forest management recommendations into actionable landowner pathways.  Tools could integrate management priorities, estimated costs and revenues, available financial assistance programs, professional and contractor resources, and implementation timelines.

Research should explore whether information already contained in digital forest management plans could populate these tools automatically, reducing administrative burdens on both landowners and forestry professionals.

Expected Impact:
More forest management plans resulting in completed practices, reduced confusion and administrative burden for landowners, and improved coordination among landowners, foresters, contractors, markets, and financial assistance programs.