I got to talking with Richard about Ethicurean and discovered that we would be in Idaho over Memorial Day Weekend. He knows a current Idaho farmer, Farmer Dan, and offered to set up an interview. I wasn’t able to travel north to McCall due to family obligations, but Richard was kind enough to ask my questions and note the answers.
Part II of this sequence will discuss my field trip to southeast Idaho to the farm that my grandparents owned until 1951 and what became of the farm.
Richard recorded some of Farmer Dan’s answers word for word (quoted below), and summarized other answers. The interview took place at a party in McCall, Idaho, and answers were transcribed on the fly at the party. (If you’ve never heard a native Idahoan’s flat, nasally accent, you won’t know what a challenge this is.)
Q Organic or conventional or a mix of both?
A All conventional. 1/4 was sugar beet. 1/4 was seed production. The rest was corn and grains for animal feed.
Q How big is their farm?
A 500 acres, split across several plots (most of which was leased). He owns 80 acres, which he is in the process of selling. The closing will be in August.
Q Do they grow livestock (cows, pigs, chickens, other critters)?
A They own two Jersey cows for their own consumption.
Q What are the challenges they face as farmers?
A “Everything’s a challenge as a farmer. You risk everything on a list a variables that you have no control over. The weather, market prices, etc. Farmers are the only ones that buy retail, sell wholesale, and buy the freight both ways.” Another challenge is the lack of consumer understanding. “This is somewhat our fault as farmers.” Consumers appear to shop purely on price, and we’ve failed at conveying what’s involved in food production.
Q How long have they or their family been farming?
A He is the fourth generation in Idaho. His lands are located in the Treasure Valley area. [Southwestern Idaho.–MolM]
Q Are they facing pressures from urban sprawl and development?
A Just sold the 80 acres for home development. “It’s impossible to farm when you’re surrounded by houses. People want to live in the country, but not get dirty.” The pressure from urban sprawl is the traffic. Also, he couldn’t imagine that his grandchildren could farm the land and get the return he’s getting from selling the property.
He had heard that a 1000 people a month are moving into the Treasure Valley.
Q What do they think of Boise’s sprawl (it’s crazy, by the way), and the PCC Farmland Trust?
A Treasure Valley produces a great deal of seed that the rest of the world relies on. Now they are just paving it over. The problem with trusts is that there comes a time when it doesn’t make sense to have a farm in the middle of town. That’s the problem with trusts’ “in perpetuity” clause. They have looked into trusts, but the money necessary to compete with developers is just too large–$40,000 to $60,000 per acre. He got $25,000 per acre for his 80. [That is $2 million.–MolM]
The land being purchased is essentially irrigated farmland. The area is surrounded by BLM land that is above the level of the irrigation system, but it’s not being purchased for development. This has been identified as a real issue. The wrong land is being purchased for development.
Q If they don’t farm organically now, would they consider switching to purely organic farming? What factors would figure into the decision?
A “Personally, I’ve never seen it work on a large scale. And, I don’t know how you make it work. That’s partially ignorance on my part.”
[Idaho does have an organic certification, and there are two regional Slow Food chapters in southeastern and southwestern Idaho. According to the USDA, 6.4 percent of Idaho farmland is held in conservation but less than 1 percent of the State’s cropland is used to raise certified farms.–MolM]
Food, Farming, & Food Politics events calendar
Humor:
April 18th, 2008 at 11:20 am
I am doing a report for school and I am looking for reasons why farmesr in s.e. idaho are selling theur farms. Any information would be helpful.
Thank you,
Irene nash
April 19th, 2008 at 11:09 am
Howdy, Irene.
You’ve certainly piqued my interest, but I don’t have set answers for you about farm sales in SE Idaho. This is the first I’ve heard of the matter.
Some casual searching turned up two things that troubled me.
One is that grain farmers in SE Idaho suffered serious crop losses in 2005 and 2006 due to different fungi. Those losses may have been the tipping points that forced farmers to sell their farms. See Capital Press’ brief article at http://capitalpress.com/Main.asp?SectionID=67&ArticleID=40705.
The other surprising item was the phrase, “demise of the Southeastern Idaho potato industry.” I certainly will look into that claim.
Both occurrences (increased grain fungus activity and use of fungicides and loss of the potato industry) have troubling implications for Idaho. I’d welcome the end of the industrial farming practices, but worry about the destructive effects of the loss of much of the state’s agricultural base.