by THE ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT, LONDON
The recent Conference of FAO reviewed a report entitled Preliminary Survey of the World's Pulp and Paper Resources and Prospects presented by the Director-General, and which had been prepared in co-operation with the Secretariats of the Economic Commission for Europe, the Economic Commission for Latin America and UNESCO. This document gave a summary of a full report that has later this year to be transmitted to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations (ECOSOC).The Conference, composed of representatives of the 71 Member Governments of FAO, commended the Director-General for the analysis presented and recommended that governments continue to explore, where desirable with FAO's assistance, long-term prospects for new pulp and paper production centers. Both governments and private investors should, prior to engaging funds and efforts in the building of new factories, undertake thorough investigations about prospective markets and production costs; suitability and continuity of the supply of raw materials; and the availability of water, power, chemicals, communication facilities, etc., at reasonable cost. The Director-General was invited to continue his studies of the world's pulp and paper requirements, and through proper study and investigation help governments to reduce the risk of misinvestments.
The following article is based on material prepared by The Economist Intelligence Unit, London, on behalf of FAO for incorporation into the report to be submitted to ECOSOC.
In response to a request from the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, FAO has undertaken extensive investigations to determine what possibilities there are for expanding facilities for the manufacture of pulp and paper in order to meet growing future requirements. That requirements are steadily, and perhaps even steeply, rising is disputed by few. Each year that passes adds millions of newly taught to the world's literate population, and thousands of new factories to its industrial resources. By common consent, increasing literacy and industrial progress are the main sources from which the need for more paper arises. That the requirements for this necessity of civilized life might outrun the resources of conventional paper-making materials is, equally, a matter on which most people are agreed.
This combination of an expanding long-term demand for paper for all its manifold uses, with a comparatively inelastic supply of raw material from the traditional sources, forms the background against which FAO's work must be viewed. It provides the justification for broadening the raw material field, and it explains the solicitude of FAO for the development of partly or largely untried fibrous materials for paper-making. Naturally attention is focussed on tropical regions provided with tropical wood and non-wood fibrous plants, because so far relatively little has been known about the quantities, availabilities and paper-making qualities of these unconventional but potentially valuable materials.
The FAO publication Raw Materials for More Paper aimed at presenting a review of paper-making materials, covering their availability, uses and conversion processes, with particular emphasis on hitherto little-used materials. The fibrous materials available for paper-making are numerous and varied. So are the processes to convert them. The choice of the materials and processes used depends very much on the kind of paper produced, and there are a great many different kinds of paper. The choice, therefore, can be complicated and difficult. Confusion is sometimes added when people with little knowledge of the industry have to make decisions, especially when different or even conflicting advice is given by experienced authorities. Even more confusing can be the claims of inventors and promoters of new and untried processes.
The establishment of industries using new processes or new materials, or both, for the production of pulp and paper might thus give rise to serious controversies and failures. Evidently then, within the program undertaken by FAO for the development of new centers of production, a prominent place must be given to the examination of such questions as:
1. What are the possibilities for manufacturing pulp and paper from the various kinds of raw materials available?2. What processes should be used, and for what kinds of paper?
3. If the use of new materials is technically possible, is it considered to be a feasible commercial venture?
4. What are the comparative manufacturing costs?
The purpose of the FAO publication already referred to is to outline the answers to these questions, by specifying for each major group of raw materials what pulping processes can be used, what kinds of paper it will yield, and at what cost different fibers could be processed by different methods. It is hoped that the information provided will tell government officials, politicians or hankers, who are not technicians, what are the decisive criteria which determine whether or not their forests and fields are a possible commercial source of pulp and paper.
The basic raw material of paper is cellulose in the form of fiber. Cellulose fiber occurs in many vegetable tissues, from which it can readily be extracted by mechanical or chemical means. Its sources are as numerous as the plant species from which it can be derived, and the number of species yielding fiber which could be used for paper runs into thousands. However, although there are many possible sources of fiber, in practice fiber suitable for paper can be extracted from only a few, for the fiber yield of most is so low that extraction does not pay.
Fiber-bearing plants range from common grasses to the most exotic of trees, but only about half a dozen sources are freely utilized. They are softwoods, hard-woods, straw, esparto grass, bagasse and bamboo. In addition paper-making fiber is derived from cotton and linen in the form of rags, and from abaca, sisal and other hard fibers in the form of cordage 1. Of these sources, wood, is at present far and away the most important, and coniferous wood alone makes a far greater contribution to total world supplies of paper-making materials than all other materials combined.
1 Considerable quantities of waste paper are of course made over into new paper.
It would be interesting to calculate and compare the availabilities of the various raw materials for paper-making But, for reasons stated below, only the broadest indication of resources can be given, and from such estimates as can be presented it is, of course, not possible to infer how much of each could be made available for pulping each year, and whether or not it is abundant.
First, most of the materials from which fiber for paper is extracted serve a great variety of uses. The extent to which they are available to the pulp and paper industry depends not only on their technical and economic merits for pulping, but also on the competing demands for them from other consuming industries, their accessibility and, not least, their popularity with paper manufactures. If coniferous wood, one of the most versatile of the world's primary materials, had no alternative uses, its supply would probably suffice to meet the pulp and paper industries' demands in full. Qualifications of this sort also apply to other fibrous materials. Naturally they limit the relevance and the usefulness of the estimates of resources.
Secondly, pulpable materials differ greatly in respect of both the processes by which they can be pulped, and the products which can be manufactured from them. Obviously the feasibility of utilizing a particular fibrous material - given its technical suitability - is determined by the nature and the costs of the process or processes appropriate to its conversion into pulp, as well as by the end-uses to which the pulp produced from it can be put. Thus, judged by the mere size of the world area covered with them, coniferous species might appear to be in plentiful supply. In fact, they are not, for most of them can be converted by any of the various pulping processes, and by some at low costs, while their end-uses in paper-making are more numerous than those of any other fibrous material - to say nothing of their manifold applications outside the pulp and paper industry. Tropical hardwoods, on the other hand, although experience has shown certain species to be technically suitable, and economic to pulp, have as yet only a small range of end-uses - one of several limitations hitherto retarding their exploitation. Resources of pulpable tropical hardwoods are potentially very extensive, but it has not yet proved profitable to turn them into active producing assets. The adequacy of resources must therefore be considered in relation to processes and products - and, again to non-paper uses.
Thirdly, the amount of pulp obtained from a ton of raw material varies from one material to another About two-and-a-half tons of esparto grass yield one ton of esparto pulp, and one ton of straw pulp requires from one-and-a-half to two tons of cereal straw, according to the type of straw used. At least two tons of wood are needed to make one ton of bleached wood pulp by chemical processes, but if the wood is processed mechanically, nine out of every ten tons ground are recovered in the form of pulp. Pulp yield then is another factor qualifying the estimates of raw material resources.
Fourthly, just as the supply of a raw material limits its consumption, so a limited demand for it may itself constitute a limitation upon the supply. For example, straw is commonly believed to exist everywhere in great abundance, available to pulp manufacturers in almost any quantity they can digest. But the surfeit may be more apparent than real, and in some countries the quantity of straw that can be made available for pulping, over and above other industrial and farm uses, is surprisingly small. The reason is that straw cannot be moved from field to factory if there are no facilities for baling, storing and transporting it, and farmers will not invest in the requisite equipment unless paper-makers assure them of continuity of purchases by means of long-term contracts. This, as is well known, paper-makers in certain countries are reluctant to do, since they are in the habit of buying wood pulp when they can, and straw only when they must. Demand tends to create a supply, and as the demand for straw expands, so does the supply to meet it. But where the movement of straw from farms to industry is not properly organized, such recoverable straw as is not used oil farms is just left to rot, and its inclusion in the annual supply total of the country naturally exaggerates the size of real availabilities.
The growth of interest in alternative fibers has its roots in the long-term growth in the demand for paper of every description, particularly for newsprint and printing paper; and it has been accelerated by periodic postwar shortages of wood pulp. These shortages cannot be ascribed to merely temporary dislocations of paper production and trade, which will gradually give way under the impact of rising output. World output of pulp and paper has strikingly expanded since 1945 and is now far greater than it ever was before 1939. Yet time and again supply has fallen short of demand, and in poor countries seriously so. Becoming increasingly literate as well as growing in population, many of the poorer countries cannot even secure the barest necessities of paper for their newspaper press, book publications and schools. Nor have successive waves of world inflation, of which the post-Korean commodity boom is the most recent example, done more than accentuate an underlying long-term tendency towards tight supplies and high prices of pulp and paper.
The failure of wood pulp production adequately to respond to the incentives of a good demand and profitable prices, reflects increasing pressure upon the limited resources of coniferous wood available for pulping. In many regions, coniferous forests have been subject to heavy cutting for so long that the maintenance of sustained yields would be threatened if more wood were to be cut than at present. Some countries may even have to cut less for a few years, to give their forests a chance to recover their vitality. With present methods of cutting, logging and transport, the volume of coniferous wood that can be taken from forests in use is unlikely to rise much above its current level - given the need to leave their productivity unimpaired. However, the world's demand for pulp, most observers agree, may rise by anything between 3.5 and 5 percent annually over the next 10 to 15 years to reach from 45 to 50 million tons in the early nineteen-sixties. This compares with the 1950 supply of 33 million tons. Unless fibrous materials other than coniferous wood are used, the paper industry may well be faced with the danger of outrunning its raw material resources.
It is true that a few untapped sources of conifers still remain in the Rocky Mountains of North America, in Canada and in Alaska. Probably the largest remaining stands are in the U.S.S.R. There are others in Central and South America, Oceania and Asia. Even with full development of the potential softwood sources, however, it appears unlikely that the rapidly growing requirements for pulp and paper all over the world can be met. And there are many countries with no softwoods at all.
Developing an alternative raw material is always apt to call forth headshakings amongst the conservative-minded, especially when economic recession threatens, even if the product whose supply is to be supplemented is itself the outcome of a revolutionary change. Paper, in fact, is well used to shifts in its raw material basis. Its history is a record of continually interacting changes in end-products, manufacturing and raw materials. In the early nineteenth century, a tremendous expansion in the demand for paper followed in the wake of the industrial and intellectual revolutions sweeping over Western Europe. To cater for the larger demand, a manufacturing method more efficient than the traditional hand labour process had to be found, and, in response, the paper-making machine was invented. But, although the demand for paper was there, as well as the machine to make it cheaply and in quantity, the raw material was not. Paper was then made from cotton and linen rags; the supply of these had served paper mills in the preceding two centuries well enough, but it became totally inadequate with the advent of the industrial age. After decades of research and experiment the quest for a more abundant - and cheaper - raw material of good pulping properties resulted in the discovery that northern spruce, fir and a few other conifers answered all requirements. The discovery marked the beginning of the modern era of paper-making.
A further major stage in the history of paper's raw materials opened with the bringing of southern pine and a few temperate hardwoods into the range of pulpable species in addition to northern spruce and fir. Before 1930 or so the former species were generally held to be of indifferent pulping quality; at any rate, they could not be converted by the sulphite process, then the predominant chemical process, and they made poor groundwood pulp. But they did turn out to be suitable for pulping by the sulphate process; and the perfection of this process opened up a vast reservoir of hitherto unexploited material. It revolutionized the United States pulp industry, which was outstripping its native resources of traditional coniferous species growing in the north, and subsequently extended its operations into the pine forests located in the south. The coming of the sulphate process also facilitated the pulping of certain temperate broadleaved species.
Yet another decisive stage may have been reached. Again paper-makers are faced with a demand for paper tending to outpace the availability of conventional raw materials converted into products of conventional type or, at least, appearance. Again there is a need to tap sources of partly untried raw materials for conversion into products hitherto largely made from traditional raw materials. On technical grounds, as experience shows, no really valid objection can be raised against the feasibility of broadening the raw materials field by increased consumption of temperate broadleaved woods, tropical woods and the fibers from straw, bamboo and bagasse. Most of these materials already have some established applications. The task is to increase the consumption in such applications and, perhaps even more, to add to them.
As would be expected, the development of new raw materials on a laboratory scale has advanced beyond commercial practice. Numerous publications on the subject are available, and most of them agree that laboratory demonstrations have indicated beyond question the technical feasibility of utilizing those of the newer materials enumerated above. Most experimental work so far done, backed up not infrequently by experience from commercial operations, suggests that the newer materials discussed, pulped by processes particularly suited to them, present no technical problems that cannot be solved even though these are often formidable.
Technical suitability is, admittedly, not enough. Ultimately the feasibility of manufacturing paper from the so-called substitute materials is determined by economic factors. These limit the potential value for use of any resource. Even when no technical problems exist, the hard facts of economics may still preclude immediate development of even the most promising materials in places remote from consuming centers inadequately provided with transport, and without the necessary industrial and financial resources, whether native or from abroad. Setting up pulp and paper mills without ensuring that all conditions necessary for economic operations are there, and not only the right raw materials, would be to court inevitable failure. Certainly the most careful assessment of conditions must precede the launching of a pulp project, especially in an underdeveloped country lacking in industrial experience.
Nevertheless, on production costs alone the new raw materials do not compare badly with the older ones. Some indeed are cheaper to process for pulp, at the present prices of the various fibrous materials concerned. The initial advantage of low pulpmaking costs may be lost in subsequent processing to convert the pulp into paper, just as its significance is somewhat lessened by the, as yet, restricted range of end-uses to which some of the newer pulps can be put. But, to say the least, the comparative cheapness of converting some of the newer materials (such as temperate hardwoods by the neutral sulphite semi-chemical process, or tropical hardwoods by the sulphate process) is a hopeful omen for the future.
The underdeveloped countries of the world are on the threshold of vast and far-reaching changes, industrial, social and political. In their advance towards industrialization and a higher standard of life, paper for books, periodicals and newspapers, for writing purposes, and for such industrial uses as packaging, will play an increasingly important role. Indeed their future progress depends in no small degree on the availability of abundant and cheap paper and paper-making materials. Yet it is exactly in these countries, which need more paper most, that this product, so vital to civilization is usually scarcest and dearest.
Over the next decade, world demand for pulp and paper is expected to increase by 3.5 to 5 percent a year. It is by no means certain that this increased demand can be met by the main production centers - that is, by North American and European industries using coniferous wood for paper. There is a strong case, therefore, for increasing the supply of pulp and paper in underdeveloped countries by harnessing those of their fibrous resources from which production of pulp and paper is technically and economically feasible. Such resources exist, as yet largely unused. They include broadleaved forests of great extent, millions of acres covered with fiber yielding plants, and renewable agricultural residues available in tonnages of stupendous size.
The mere existence of such potential resources, however, proves little except that, for a complex of reasons, exploitation has not yet proved profitable. But FAO has endeavored to show that exploitation is frequently possible, as well as desirable. The main conclusions reached can be summarized as follows:
1. Tropical bamboo cane, bagasse, straw and various other agricultural residues, constitute suitable raw materials for the manufacture of pulp and paper on industrial lines.2. Provided that these potential sources of fiber are utilized, there can be no doubt that the world's supply of pulping raw materials iii plentiful, and even abundant to meet any conceivable increase in the world's prospective requirements for pulp and paper.
3. A variety of well-established pulping processes is available for the conversion of the heretofore unconventional raw materials.
4. Generally speaking, chemicals, power, transportation, and, above all, money, are more costly in underdeveloped countries than in industrial areas, and it requires far more capital to establish an efficient pulp and paper mill in those countries than in North America or Scandinavia. The effect of these additional cost elements is, however, frequently offset by the existence of cheaper raw materials and labor.
5. There is sufficient economic promise in the manufacture of paper from the newer raw materials to warrant the thorough examination of a number of projects for setting up new pulp and paper producing units in the tropics.
These conclusions call for a few comments. First, while all the principal pulping processes have some applicability, only a few can be applied, for instance to complex mixtures of species such as are found in tropical forests. In general, only alkaline processes - particularly the sulphate process - appear to he suited for tropical broadleaved mixtures. Secondly, mechanical pulp, the chief ingredient of newsprint and cheap printings, can be produced from no agricultural fibers, from only very few broadleaved tropical woods and from not many broadleaved temperate woods. But, thirdly, the pulps produced from these materials are suitable for blending with coniferous wood or bamboo pulps; and this is one important reason why more consideration should be given than in the past to the production of paper from mixed types of pulp. Fourthly, although paper produced from unconventional materials in underdeveloped countries may be dearer than the imported product, it may also happen that, because of currency restrictions, import restrictions, and political considerations, the cheaper foreign product is not imported anyway. In such circumstances the internal economy of the country would benefit from local manufacture of pulp and paper even at costs involving a temporary fiscal loss.
But it is unwise to generalize on such elusive phenomena as costs. Each individual proposal necessarily differs from any other and should therefore be examined on its merits. Many factors interact to determine whether or not a particular project is economic. These factors cannot be evaluated except through the most careful study and investigation.
In the initial stage of locating pulp and paper plants in tropical regions attention must be centered on a few especially suitable areas. If proposals are over-ambitious, too widespread and diversified, discouraging failures may result, and the entire program may suffer.
As regards a mill dependent on forest resources, planning consists of four major stages:
1. The selection of the site for the mill as determined by the proximity of raw materials, water and power facilities, transportation, etc.2. A forest survey to determine the size and composition of the stand. (This cannot be accomplished by aerial survey alone; statistical sampling methods should also be used).
3. Experimentation on laboratory and industrial scales.
4. The planning of the plant and the choice of process it uses, following on the preliminary steps indicated under 1 to 3.
All future experimentation with making paper from tropical wood should be associated with close examination of the composition of the forest from which the experimental material comes, in order that the process adaptability of the species available may be gauged. Likewise silvicultural research into tropical broadleaved species should be greatly intensified, to provide prospective owners of mills with the necessary knowledge as to growth and yields, and even more, as to the practices that will ensure a perpetual supply of desirable species.
Few will dispute that there are important if, at present, limited possibilities for making paper from tropical broadleaved woods. In so far as mills to utilize these woods are established in underdeveloped countries - and this can be taken to be the rule - they are likely to increase the tempo of industrialization in such countries, just as increased industrialization Will in turn accelerate the development of pulp and paper mills by making available to them more chemicals and equipment from nearby domestic sources. As this interaction proceeds, growing experience in manufacturing and marketing the papers made from tropical wood - possibly also in competing on foreign markets where product quality is of supreme importance - may further contribute to accelerate their production and consumption.
There is every reason to believe that this large and unexploited resource can make a vital contribution towards raising the standard of living in tropical countries. Inevitably there must be a period of trial - and error. But if the technical and economic means already available are wisely used, there can arise a pulp and paper industry in the underdeveloped parts of the world that will be of world importance.
An FAO forest officer in Haiti has been at work since 1951 assisting in improving the organization of the forest service and helping the Forestry Division of the Department of Agriculture to prepare programs of reforestation and soil conservation. Haiti's 1,625 million acres (ha. 650,000) of forest c over about one-quarter of the land area. Population pressure and lack of understanding of the effects of forest denudation have caused the forest rapidly to disappear.
One of the chief tasks of the FAO officer has been to help instruct the farming communities in the hills on the advantages of forest conservation and tree-planting as a means of arresting soil erosion and of regulating water flow. Seedlings of useful species hare been distributed successfully in various localities. Working through schools and Boy Scout troops, and enlisting the support of religious organizations, the Forest Service has been able to stimulate a commendable awareness of forest values. Instruction and demonstration are adjusted to the mentalities and attitude to life of the villagers themselves. School books and leaflets have been produced to foster the innate pride of the local people in their land. The cover illustration shown was sketched by a Haitian artist. Mr. Alix Roy.
