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March 11, 2009
Maple syrup fact of the day
"Listen to this, we have 289 million maple trees in New York," Mr. Schumer said in an interview, "but we tap less than one-half of 1 percent of them. It’s a large, untapped resource, shall we say."As Maple Syrup Prices Rise, New York Leaders See Opportunity
It could be that as the article suggests, that there are enormous deals to be had by home owners and farmers licensing the syrup harvest of their trees. However, I bet if you dig deeper into this story, you'll find that to have efficient economies of scale in syrup production you need a high density of maple trees in the land to be harvested, and the vast majority of maple trees are not found at this density.
Note that 43 gallons of sap are required to produce 1 gallon of syrup and over an entire season, one can expect about 10 to 12 gallons of sap per tree (Homemade Maple Syrup). Even at wholesale prices of about $50 a gallon implied by the high retail prices in the article, that's just $12 or so per tree per year. Factor in labor, energy, transportation, contracting, and capital costs and you begin to see how it is going to take many trees before this become economical.
Posted by OneEyedMan at March 11, 2009 12:22 PM
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