Kentucky’s forests cover nearly half the Commonwealth but only scattered information had existed on the overall economic impact of Kentucky’s forest and wood industry. To address this shortfall, a team of faculty and staff from the University of Kentucky Departments of Forestry and Agricultural Economics (Drs. Jeff Stringer, Alison Davis, and Terrell Baker along with staff members Bobby Ammerman and Billy Thomas) worked closely to compile data from a wide variety of sources for the Kentucky forest and wood industry. In 2013 this data was summarized and analyzed to assemble a comprehensive report on the Kentucky forest and wood industry. The subsequent extension publications (FORFS 13-03 and FORFS 13-04) that were developed as a result of this project revealed the forest and wood industry in Kentucky is a significant contributor to the Commonwealth’s economy.

In 2020 the publication was updated to include the current reporting year – 2018 - 2019 (FORFS 20-02).  The publication showed an economic impact of the Kentucky Forestry Sector to be $9.1 billion in 2019 in direct economic impact and over 13 billion in indirect and induced and provided a total of 53,495 jobs.  There were 27,933 Kentucky citizens employed in the Kentucky Forest Products industry in 2018. I gave a presentation during the Kentucky Farm Bureau meeting in Louisville Kentucky in the fall of 2019 on the report. In addition, a full release will be provided during the 2020 Kentucky Forest Industry Association Annual Meeting late this summer.