03/12/08 Dry bean prices up, what about acreage

Bill Bitzenburg is a Twin Falls farmer and president of the Idaho Bean Commission. Like others who are part of the dry bean business the competition for crop acreage has helped the bottom line. BITZENBURG "The companies have had to raise the price on the beans they're putting out in order to get anybody to grow them at all and it really couldn't be better for bean farmers. You're talking mid 30's guarantees for beans and that's prices we just haven't had for a long, long time." With good prices will Idaho farmers plant more bean acres this year? BITZENBURG "They don't take a lot of inputs as far as water and fertilizer so we might be seeing a few inroads in some of the corn acres because corn takes a lot of fertilizer to grow. Price of seed corn is expensive so we might see some acres switch out of corn and into beans at these prices." All growers will tell you that North Dakota is the dominate force in the dry bean market. In Idaho growers will plant beans later in the spring for both human consumption and for seed production. The state ranks fifth in the nation for its dry bean crop. Voice of Idaho Agriculture Bill Scott