2009-A Look Back

 In life there has always been one question that has defined how I feel about anything and here it is: If you had it to do again…would you? Let’s apply that to the year 2009. As 2009 has come to a close, a lot of us are awfully glad to see it in our rear view mirrors. It’s been a tough…even disastrous year for many and agriculture hasn’t been immune, that’s for sure. American Farm Bureau President Bob Stallman took a look back at some of agriculture’s big stories in 2009 and certainly pertinent to Idaho, at the top of his list: “I think the weather extremes that we experienced this year whether it was early spring weather that was too wet in some areas and then the fall harvest weather turned unseasonably cool and wet. That prevented a lot of harvest from occurring on schedule and created a lot of quality and yield problems in parts of the country so it was really an unusual weather year for U.S. agriculture. We had the dairy industry under a lot of economic stress, we had much lower commodity prices than we had in 2008 while at the same time producers were still coping with higher input costs so from an economic perspective, we took a significant decrease in net farm income even though historically we still had a relatively high level that created a lot of anxiety for producers.

I’d say he hit the nail on the head for Idaho. Can’t guarantee 2010 weather but Idaho Dairymen’s Association’s Bob Naerbout says he optimistic for this year in terms of the dairy industry.