South Carolina's ag commissioner Hugh Weathers says that South Carolina farm and forest land owners are thinking of a different kind of green -- the one that puts more green in our state's pocket from fields and forests. Since forests cover nearly two-thirds of the land area in the state, and that the forest industry employs about 30,000 individuals with a payroll of over a billion dollars a year, forestry combined with agriculture makes agribusiness the major economic engine in South Carolina at nearly $34 billion and about 200,000 jobs.
Commissioner Weathers says that Southeast Renewable Energy recently announced that the company will build a new 15-megawatt biomass energy plant in Kershaw County to be fueled using timber residue. The plant will likely be completed late next year and is expected to create many indirect jobs in the logging, trucking, and forest products industries as well as jobs in the facility.
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