6-14 FB Dairy Drives Ag

 A chat with one of the most interesting people I know. The subject? Agricultural trends in our state.

 Dr. Garth Taylor is an agricultural economist at the University of Idaho. I called him up from time to time to try and get a grasp of what is going on in our state in terms of agricultural trends.  In a chat with Dr. Taylor the other day, he had a rather surprising revelation as it relates to the dairy business.  “Dave, my feeling is that we are going to see more and more, if we haven’t seen it already, that the ag economy in the state is going to be driven by the health of the dairy industry. Which is right now rather anemic and sick is it not? Yes, that is what I understand. There are some real financial problems in the dairy industry. Terrible problems. There is an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal about the dairy industry expanding into China. They are importing heifers and stuff like that. AI have 1st and bringing them in by the tens of thousands on ships into China. I had heard that and that must mean they want to go into business for themselves. Yes which is a really interesting type of news angle. It is really fantastic to think about that. I wonder if it’s happening in Idaho?