Idaho Agriculture Takes a Tumble in 2009

 Idaho agriculture's projected cash receipts for 2009 dropped 17 percent to $5.4 billion from 2008, the largest single-year decline in more than 40 years. A tough year for Idaho's dairy, livestock and some key crop sectors determined the industry's overall performance.

  Even though much of the double-digit increases in total revenues of the previous two years evaporated, receipts are still 16.6 percent above 2006. Unfortunately, expenses rose 27 percent during the same time period.

 The picture painted by the numbers is that even a down year for one sector, livestock, is partially offset by another, crops, which declined 11 percent, half of livestock's 23 percent drop. Diversity is a key to the industry's overall economic performance.

 Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology economist Dr. Garth Taylor has an interesting perspective: “A large part of that is due to the milk and the drop in the dairy prices which has a ripple effect on the ag economy in Idaho. Dairy farmers are not able to bid up the price of hay like they did the year before. Corn sileage and a whole host of other crops that go into feeding dairy cows.”

 Dr. Taylor is somewhat optimistic that things will get better in 2010.