Poplars May Become Navajo Cash Crop

Within 10 years, up to 3,000 acres of Navajo land may be covered with a dense forest of skyscraping poplar trees.

The Navajo Agricultural Products Industry (NAPI) plans to invest $2.3 million during the next decade to plant some 1.5 million hybrid poplars— a fast-growing tree that NAPI expects to turn into a highly profitable cash crop.

"This is a brand-new product for us," said NAPI conservation manager Buddy Benally. "We’re still learning how to plant and harvest poplars in a commercially viable way. It’s a big-scale project that will take a while to mature, but we definitely plan on doing it."

NAPI already planted about 100 acres of poplars with 50,000 trees in 2004, after New Mexico State University researchers demonstrated that some hybrid poplars thrive in the semiarid Four Corners.

By Kevin Robinson-Avila
For the Journal

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