Ask a landowner in Barbour County what their pine is worth and they will likely quote a number they heard three years ago. Ask the log truck driver who used to haul it across the Walter F. George dam and you will get a different answer.
The gap between those two answers is the story of 2025 and 2026 for timberland around Eufaula. It is not the story the statewide stumpage averages tell, and it is not the story the national housing headlines tell. It is a haul-distance story, and it starts about fifteen miles east of the Chattahoochee River.
The Mill That Set the Price for a Generation
For six decades, Georgia-Pacific's Cedar Springs facility in Early County, Georgia sat as the closest major fiber buyer to the Alabama pine tracts on the western side of the river. Georgia-Pacific announced in May 2025 that it would permanently close the Cedar Springs containerboard mill along the state's southwest border with Alabama, with all 535 employees let go and most positions eliminated by August 1. The company confirmed it would begin shifting some of the Cedar Springs production to other facilities, including containerboard mills in Big Island, Virginia; Toledo, Oregon; Monticello, Mississippi; and Brewton, Alabama.
That last name matters. Brewton is roughly 180 miles south of Eufaula. Cedar Springs was under an hour away.
Georgia lawmakers noted that the closures would ripple far beyond millworkers to timber growers, truckers, tire shops, restaurants and schools in small towns that have long depended on the mills. The ripple most local landowners have not yet felt in their statements is the one that shows up when a consulting forester runs the numbers on a proposed harvest. Delivered price minus haul cost equals stumpage. Extend the haul, and the number the landowner sees at the end of the equation gets smaller, even when the mill-gate price does not move.
What the Statewide Numbers Actually Say
The published Alabama averages for Q4 2025 look bad on their own terms, and they look worse once you factor in local geography. Here is the picture, drawn from TimberMart-South Q4 2025 data as reported through Southern Ag Today in January 2026.
| Product | Alabama Q4 2025 | YoY change | Context |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pine sawtimber | ~$17–21/ton | –19% | Among steepest declines in the South |
| Pine chip-n-saw | ~$17/ton | Roughly flat | Held better than sawtimber |
| Pine pulpwood | ~$19/ton band | Stable | Propped up by South Alabama mill investment |
| Hardwood sawtimber | ~$33/ton | Near record | The lone bright spot |
| Hardwood pulpwood | ~$8/ton | Stable | 33% below 2022 |
In Q4 2025, pine sawtimber prices ranged from about $17-21/ton in Tennessee, South Carolina, and Alabama to over $30/ton in Florida and North Carolina. Compared to a year ago, pine sawtimber prices declined in Alabama by 19%. Chip-n-saw held up better. Southwide pine chip-n-saw prices remained relatively stable at $17.50-18.20/ton, essentially unchanged from last year but roughly 20% below 2022 levels.
Now the surprise. Pine pulpwood prices declined sharply in South Georgia by 40%, South Carolina by 32%, Arkansas by 27%, and Louisiana by 26%, while remaining relatively stable in Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee. The reason that word "stable" appears next to Alabama in a report where every other number is red is not an accident of geology. New investments and mill expansions in South Alabama and Arkansas have increased local demand and helped support pulpwood prices in those areas.
The Hidden Mechanism: You Are Not Selling Timber, You Are Selling Delivered Fiber
Here is the piece most landowners miss when they read the statewide number. The stumpage price they receive is a residual. It is what remains after the buyer subtracts the cost of cutting, loading, and hauling the wood to a specific mill gate. All prices are stumpage — what landowners receive for standing timber per ton, before harvest, transport, and milling costs. Delivered mill prices run 40–60% higher.
That 40 to 60 percent gap is where the Cedar Springs closure lives. A load that used to travel from a Barbour County tract to Cedar Springs in under an hour now, if it moves at all, is competing for space at mills that are farther away and already have their preferred suppliers. Haul cost is roughly linear with distance. Stumpage gets squeezed from the top.
The Alabama-side landowner whose tract was priced against a 45-minute haul in 2023 is now being priced against a 3-hour haul, or against a chip-n-saw mill that only wants a certain diameter, or against a pellet plant with a lower fiber price ceiling. The statewide average does not capture that. It averages over it.
This is the number that contradicts the obvious story. Alabama pulpwood held steady because of mill investment on the south end of the state. That average includes tracts within a comfortable haul of the mills that expanded. It also includes tracts, like many in the Chattahoochee corridor, that lost their nearest buyer entirely. Two very different markets, one published number.
What Actually Changed for a Chattahoochee-Corridor Landowner
If you own a tract of loblolly around Eufaula, White Oak, Clayton, or Clio, here is the specific friction the closure introduced:
- Your nearest fiber buyer changed. Loads that used to move east across the dam now move south or west. The list of accepting mills is shorter and the drive is longer.
- Loggers rebalanced their crews. Lawmakers worried the closures would ripple far beyond millworkers to timber growers, truckers, tire shops, restaurants and schools in small towns that have long depended on the mills. Fewer local crews chasing the same tracts means longer waits between call and cut.
- Product mix matters more than acreage. A tract that is heavy on mature hardwood sawtimber is in a completely different market than one that is heavy on 15-year loblolly headed for pulpwood. Hardwood sawtimber is the bright spot, tracking near the southwide record high. Pine sawtimber is not.
- The "hold and wait" instinct needs a stress test. Pine sawtimber prices in the South are expected to remain relatively stable in 2026. Stable is not the same as rebounding. A year of holding costs a landowner property taxes, insurance, and the compounding risk of a weather event on standing inventory.
- The land value and the timber value are diverging. The recreational, residential, and lake-adjacent value of a Barbour County tract has not moved with pulpwood. In many cases it has moved the other way. That divergence changes what "highest and best use" means for a given parcel.
Reading the 2026 Outlook Through a Local Lens
The forward view from the national data is a hedged one. Single-family building permits, a leading indicator of housing starts, fell to 876,000 units in October, 9.4% lower than a year earlier, and although Federal Reserve interest rate cuts in 2025 may ease financing conditions, housing starts are expected to remain under pressure in 2026. That puts a ceiling on pine sawtimber demand for another cycle.
The pulp side is structural, not cyclical. The continued decline in pine pulpwood prices reflects ongoing structural changes in the pulp and paper industry, including product shifts, increased use of recycled fiber, mill modernization, and relocation to lower-cost regions. Cedar Springs was one of those relocations, in the sense that its work moved to other rooftops in the same company. It is not coming back.
For the landowner near Eufaula, the honest read on 2026 is that the pine market is not the reason to sell, and it is also not the reason to hold. The reason to do either is the specific tract, the specific product mix, the specific access, and the specific alternative use.
Three Questions to Ask Before You Decide
Do you know your product mix by ton, not by acre? Two 80-acre tracts can carry wildly different value. A cruise from a registered Alabama consulting forester is the only honest baseline. Consult a registered Alabama consulting forester before any timber transaction.
Do you know your delivered market? Not the statewide average. The actual list of mills that will accept your product from your gate at today's haul rates. That list is shorter in the Chattahoochee corridor than it was two years ago.
Is the land worth more than the timber on it? For lake-adjacent, recreational, and roadfront tracts around Eufaula, this question is answerable and increasingly worth answering.
A Short FAQ
Should I harvest now to lock in what is left of the pine market? The soft market and the extended haul cut both directions. Harvesting into weakness locks in the loss. Holding costs carry too. The answer is tract-specific and belongs to a consulting forester and, if the parcel might change hands, a broker who works land and timber locally.
Is hardwood really the bright spot? Pine sawtimber stumpage dropped roughly 19% year-over-year statewide, among the steepest declines anywhere in the South, while pine pulpwood continued a multi-year slide driven by pulp mill closures across the region. Hardwood sawtimber was the lone bright spot, holding near record levels thanks to persistent export demand and domestic interest in high-quality hardwood. If your tract carries mature hardwood, that market is real.
Are carbon programs a serious alternative? They exist. Pulpwood prices are projected to remain weak through 2026 absent new mill investments. Some landowners are looking at carbon revenue as a bridge. It is a long-dated contract with its own conditions and should be evaluated with the same rigor as a timber sale.
Where can I check current Alabama stumpage myself? TimberMart-South publishes the quarterly Alabama average. The USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station maintains Alabama timber price information and mill listings. The Alabama Cooperative Extension System publishes ongoing forestry market commentary.
Land and timber around Eufaula is a specialty, not a sideline. If you are weighing a harvest, a sale, or a change of use on a tract along the Chattahoochee corridor, Chattahoochee Realty Group can walk the parcel with you, coordinate a cruise with a registered consulting forester, and give you an honest read on what the land is worth in today's market, not the market of three years ago. Get Exclusive Access to Top Listings and a candid conversation about your acreage by reaching out today.
