12-19 IAT Farming Dynamics

I have to confess that I am never underwhelmed by the business savvy that is necessary for a farmer to acquire in order to stay profitable. There is such a chess match that goes on between all of the parameters that lead to success as an agricultural producer. Whether concerns, disease, environmental challenges, financing, weeds, herbicides, fertilizers, prices of fuel. The list never seems to end to say nothing of the financial climate in our country. I learned a little tiny slice of that when chatting with University of Idaho agricultural economist Paul Patterson. "A lot of the times grain crops were viewed as strictly rotation crops. That has not been the case in recent years. We have had fairly high commodity prices in general, some of the best prices consistently across a wide range of commodities at least as far as I have seen in my career as an agricultural economist. If you look at what is happening right now, at least in the grain complex in general, prices are moving down. When you talk about corn, for example, the question is are you talking about grain corn or silage, and with the sizable dairy industry in Idaho, there has certainly been a big demand for silage for dairy cattle and that has been a very good rotation crop for growers as well.