Far West Agribusiness Conference

Far West Agribusiness Conference. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

The 2012 Far West Agribusiness’ Washington Winter Conference just wrapped up and Executive Director, Jim Fitzgerald is pleased with the program. He talks about how the industry fared over the last 12 months.

FITZGERALD: We’ve been really fortunate in the northwest. Part of that is weather. Even just recently, the last 30-45 days we’ve got what they call the pineapple express ; we’ve had quite a bit of weather come from kind of the Hawaiian Islands and the south. Kind of warmer atmosphere up through California and the western United States so that’s really helped the crops. But in addition we’ve had a good run.

He says that the last three years have shown great yields and great prices. Right now the northwest apple producers are sitting on the largest apple crop ever and Fitzgerald says they are not alone.

FITZGERALD: Really the only commodity that seems to have slipped is potatoes but wheat and all the cereal grains, corn, barley, peas, garbonzos, I mean they’ve all enjoyed tremendous prices.

He says there are always factors that are working against farmers and retailers alike.

FITZGERALD: Bottom line is our customers are the farmers and when the farmers do well the retailers do well. So we’re very fortunate to be working in the area of agriculture and retailers have had a string of good years. What’s concerning them in the future? I think there’s some uncertainty about additional fees, additional regulations, requirements for additional capital investment to meet compliance so all those things either squeeze the bottom line of a retailer or increase the cost of a product.

Far West works to enhance the business and safety environment for the fertilizer and agrichemical industry and Fitzgerald says with all those things considered that their business has had a good year as well.

FITZGERALD: But by and large the Association’s had a fantastic year. We’ve actually had record membership both in numbers as well as in revenue. We’ve enjoyed some non-membership revenue that has help us do conferences such as this and similar programs so we haven’t had to increase fees and we haven’t had a fee increase for like 10 years or so. We’ll have a modest one of about $150 per member just to fund the scholarships but the associations just in really good financial shape and we’re looking forward to meeting needs of the members and continuing to provide value in 2013.

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.