3-8 FB Ag Economy

 An update from Gov. Otter on the state of the states agricultural economy. I recently had an opportunity to sit down with Gov. Otter and discuss a variety of issues not the least of which was how our agricultural economy was chugging along. Not surprisingly, the governor was very up beat but if there was anything that was a significant change, mercifully it was in the dairy industry. “Agriculture is big, very big this year. Our farm gate went over $1 billion for the 1^st time in the history of the state. We are consuming a lot more of our agricultural output here in Idaho than we have in the past because of the growth of the dairy industry. We can’t eat all of the French fries that we make here in the state but we are consuming more and more of the feedstock. This is a result of the growing dairy industry. That has brought in the value added industry like Glanbia. Folks like that are making additional investments in Idaho, in fact, last month we made an announcement in the neighborhood of $200 million in new investments that those folks are making so that they can have the value added here in Idaho and ship those products all over the United States and the world.