Economist: Idaho Agriculture is Big and Growing

Jan 12, 2022

By Sean Ellis

When it comes to total revenue and economic output, Idaho’s agriculture industry is big and it’s getting bigger.

“We’re not only big but we’re also growing,” University of Idaho Agricultural Economist Garth Taylor told lawmakers Jan. 6. “Idaho is a very small state economically but we have big agriculture.”

While total net farm income in Idaho declined 8 percent in 2021 compared with 2020 because farm production expenses reached a record level, total gross farm-gate revenue in the state increased 9 percent to a record $8.9 billion.

According to U of I’s annual Financial Condition of Idaho Agriculture report, farm-gate receipts for Idaho farmers and ranchers increased by almost $780 million in 2021.

A separate University of Idaho report released in January shows the state’s agriculture industry directly and indirectly accounts for 17 percent of Idaho’s total economic output, 12.5 percent of Idaho’s total gross domestic product and one of every eight jobs in the state.

According to Taylor, Idaho is the fifth largest agriculture state in the nation when it comes to gross domestic product generated by agriculture as a percentage of a state’s total GDP.

And the impact that agriculture has within Idaho’s economy continues to grow, significantly, he said.

Over the past two decades, Idaho agriculture is growing at a faster rate than the state economy as a whole and also the national farm economy as a whole, Taylor told lawmakers.

From 1997-2020, in inflation-adjusted dollars, Idaho GDP grew by more than 100 percent, while Idaho farm GDP grew by more than 200 percent, Taylor said.

Based on data from USDA’s Economic Research Service, total Idaho farm-gate receipts grew by 60 percent on a real-dollar basis from 1997-2020, Taylor said, while total U.S. farm-gate receipts grew by 10 percent during that same time.

Based on U.S. Department of Commerce and U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data, he said, while Idaho farm GDP grew 200 percent in real-dollar terms from 1997-2020, total GDP from U.S. farming grew 90 percent during that time.

It’s production agriculture and not food processing that is driving most of the growth in Idaho farm GDP, Taylor said.

For example, total GDP from Idaho’s food processing industry grew by 60 percent from 1997-2020.

“It’s your farmers – grandma and grandpa on a tractor – that are driving this growth,” Taylor said. “The major growth which we see in agriculture in Idaho has been in production agriculture, not in food processing.”

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Video: The 15-Year Bet Behind Every New Variety!

Canada is trying to decide how much agricultural research capacity it can afford to lose. Brian Rossnagel believes the better question is whether the country can afford to rebuild it.

The longtime barley and oat breeder makes the case with a simple fact about his profession: the consequences of today’s decisions may not become visible for 10 or 15 years.

“Pick the right parents. That’s the biggest thing,” Rossnagel says. “If you pick the wrong parents, you’re not going to get anywhere—and you don’t know that until 10 years, 15 years later.”

That warning carries particular weight as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada moves to reduce spending and streamline parts of its science operations. The department’s 2026–27 plan anticipates the loss of approximately 665 positions by 2028–29 and says some research will be reduced where capacity exists in academia or industry. AAFC says the changes will make its science operations more cost-effective over the long term.

For Canada’s seed industry, Rossnagel’s career illustrates what is at stake.

This fall, the retired University of Saskatchewan breeder will be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame. During his 35-year career at the Crop Development Centre, he helped develop more than 100 barley and oat varieties, including CDC Austenson—one of Western Canada’s most widely grown feed barleys. His induction recognizes not only those varieties, but the collaboration and research system that made them possible.

Rossnagel is quick to emphasize that none of it was the work of one person.

“The first thing I thought about was all the other people who contributed to whatever success I and my program had over the years,” he says. “We know that it’s not an individual who does this. It’s a group—a team.”

That team extends well beyond the breeder whose name appears beside a variety. It includes technicians, pathologists, quality specialists, statisticians, regional testing sites, seed growers and industry partners. It also includes the breeders who came before and those who will carry the germplasm forward.

CDC Fraser barley, for example, moved through three breeding careers. Its parents came from Brian Harvey’s program. Rossnagel advanced the material after Harvey retired, and Aaron Beattie later guided it through registration and release.

That kind of handoff is normal in plant breeding. The person who makes the original cross may never see the resulting variety reach farmers.

It also explains why lost research capacity cannot simply be switched back on when budgets improve.

“If you shut it off, it’s very, very difficult—and particularly costly—to start it up again,” Rossnagel says. “If you have to start from scratch, it’s going to be at least 10 years before anybody notices whether you’re getting anything done or not.”

The concern is not simply how many experimental lines Canada can process. Modern equipment, statistical tools and genetic technologies allow today’s breeding programs to evaluate tens of thousands of lines—far more than Rossnagel could handle when he entered the field in the early 1970s.

But efficiency and automation do not generate every idea.

“If you pare back down, and instead of having six or seven individual scientists concentrating on wheat breeding, you go down and say three people could handle all this, well, that’s half the ideas gone,” he says. “Particularly if you happen to lose the three people who had the really neat and innovative ideas, boy, that’s a problem.”

It is a timely distinction for Canadian agriculture. Consolidating programs may preserve the volume of material moving through a system, at least initially. It may not preserve the diversity of thinking, regional knowledge or willingness to pursue unconventional crosses.

That regional knowledge matters because Canadian agriculture is not one uniform production environment. A variety suited to southern Alberta may face different disease, moisture and maturity pressures than one grown in Manitoba, Ontario or Atlantic Canada.

“Agriculture is applied biology,” Rossnagel says. “Biology, all around the Earth, moves from the poles to the equator. It does not move from Newfoundland to B.C. like politics do.”