Where's Hay Headed

Friday Feb 20th, 2009 16 Views Idaho Ag Today

Farmers looking at spring plantings are probably wondering, like the rest of us, what the economy’s going to do and, as it specifically relates to growers, what the economy is going to dictate in terms of making the right planting decisions. We talked to Bruce Davis, an Idaho commodity salesman and expert about hay, and without interrupting, here’s what he had to say about hay.

(Davis) “I do know that they’ve lost their export business, I think down there at Boardman where they take those big bails and compress them and they sell it to the Japanese, I think a lot of that business is gone. I do know some of the guys are into raising the dairy hay because it was trading as high as $225/ton and some of those contracts got refused. So he’s gonna have some hay to re-sell at a lot less numbers. I don’t know where the hay market’s gonna go but it’s gonna go back to where it was on 4-5 years ago. Wheat and hay were in a small trading range because the market didn’t get boosted. I think we’re heading there again. Hay’s gonna go way down in value. I don’t know where it’s gonna settle. There’s gonna be a lot of carry out on this hay come this spring. The dairymen can’t make it so they’re killing off a lot of cows.”