Far West Conference

Far West Meeting. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.
Its meeting time in the ag industry and one meeting wrapping up today is the Far West Winter Conference. Far West Agribusiness Association's mission is to enhance the business and safety environment for the fertilizer and agrichemical industry in Idaho, Oregon, Utah, Nevada and Washington. Executive Director Jim Fitzgerald says this was a tough year for ag.

FITZGERALD: At lunch we had an opportunity to hear from the Director of Agriculture, Dan Newhouse, and he addressed the group and of course no secret that there’s budget concerns on the state level in Washington, there’s also in Oregon, also in Idaho. In fact I believe theirs only a couple of states, I may be wrong, but I think it’s Montana and Wyoming out in the west that are still kind of free and clear.

Fitzgerald says this is fairly broad reaching with serious effects.

FITZGERALD: So obviously the business community is watching it very carefully because whether its increase in revenue which would be taxes or fees or whatever form that might come in typically it affects not only individuals but businesses and there’s sometimes misconception that it affects business it doesn’t affect the individuals but we all know there’s sort of a put through and everyone is wondering how are we going to deal with those numbers. I believe the Governor, Dan said, has a report coming out I want to say somewhere around the 11^th of December so everybody is paying attention.

And Fitzgerald says from a production point, last year was a good one.

FITZGERALD: As far as the production side at least – well in all states last year of course was a banner year for a lot of different reasons from a price standpoint, from a production standpoint and then at least in the cereal grains there was an all-risk insurance program that actually paid some dividends. Revenue was terrific last year in the farming community and that means they bought more product whether it’s equipment, whether it’s advanced purchases on fertilizer and pesticides – it was a good year all around. This year you are hard pressed to find a commodity that’s really doing as well.

The ag industry as it has a habit of doing is going through another down cycle and he says news for this year has not been very sunny.

FITZGERALD: Yet interestingly enough natural gas prices have gone down. That softened the fertilizer price but that’s about it. Fuel hasn’t really retracted much, insurance costs are still high, the cost of production is high and so here we go again. We’re being squeezed a little bit and that affects domestic food sources.

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.