6-15 FB Dairy Woes

 Recently ,JOHN O'CONNELL  from Capital Press commented about the woes that Idaho’s dairy industry is encountering. This is nothing new to any of us because as we know for some time between high input costs and low milk prices is hard for dairy men to make ends meet. In fact I recently reported on the comments from University of Idaho agricultural economist Dr. Garth Taylor and during a conversation with them he said that he believed the state of the agricultural economy in Idaho was dependent upon the dairy industry. Now we find out, and it is not surprising, that dairy men are adding to their troubles by having  difficulty borrowing money. I called Executive Director of the Idaho Dairyman’s Association Bob Naerbout and he had these comments for me:  “Because of the conditions over the past few years dairy men never had a chance to recover from the 2009 crash. Their ability to borrow money for lines that feed has diminished greatly from where it was prior to 2009.”  Bob also pointed out that our own dairy people are having to fight for feed because of foreign competition, I. E., Asia is buying a lot of our hay.