12-2 IAT Flat Potatoes
A University of Idaho economic study shows the cost of raising potatoes held relatively flat this year. UI Extension Economist Paul Patterson: “I would say relatively steady. One of the things that the project that I have funded from the Idaho Potato Commission is they want to look at how cost changed year-to-year and so what I try to do is be consistent with my model farms, collect the data, and try to run the numbers. Now every grower is going to have slightly different variations. So what we do is track overall trends. What drove some of the trends was that seed costs and fertilizer costs were down this year but other costs went up and offset some of that. Like your negation costs. Water costs went up in a number of the irrigation districts, the canal companies, probably the significant increase was the increased cost of power where hydropower is a major source of how they generate power. We have not had a good water year and therefore they have been raising the rates to compensate for the fact that they have to buy thermal power out on the grid to make sure that they have an adequate power base to serve their customers. So that fuel cost words mixed, up in some areas down another’s, machinery repair costs were up primarily driven by higher costs associated with equipment. Equipment costs keep steadily increasing and therefore parts that go into them go up. It was kind of a mix in terms of what happened but overall the changes were relatively modest this year compared to what we have seen in some of the previous years.
