4-27 FB Otter on Ag

 As usual, agriculture in Idaho is leading the economic recovery. In a recent conversation I asked Gov. Otter if agriculture can ad a healthy economic input into our states fiscal picture. “In Idaho it already has. We are enjoying quite an economic boost. Milk is up around $19 now and that’s coming off of a nine dollar low from a couple of years back. It got up to about $13-$14 and hovered around there for a while but when $16 is your production costs and you’re only getting $13 back for it, it doesn’t take a Phi Beta Kappa in economics to figure that out. We are starting to see those kinds of returns for milk, grains are doing well, the potato crop which is in the ground or starting to go into the ground in Idaho, big plantings will come in they and June, I think the potato crop is going to look awful good, sugar’s looking good, but the cereal grains are very active, there’s some great returns coming on those, so I think our total agricultural picture is looking pretty good.