Salute to Idaho Agriculture: A Look Back at the 2024 Year

Buhl, Idaho (KMVT/KSVT) — “Farmers take on a lot of risk every year to plant their crops.” With winter here and not much growing, many farmers are now reflecting on how the 2024 growing year went.

Sean Ellis, spokesman for the Idaho farm bureau, says when it comes to last year’s yield, it went about as expected. “It was a pretty average year, keep in mind that an average year in Idaho agriculture is actually pretty decent, so I heard yields were up, no major problems with quality.”

Even though the yields were up, it’s not all good news, “The crop sector is still strong, but they are financially challenged right now. Farmers right now are facing some serious challenges.”

“Obviously our costs were up, and our prices were down yields tended to make that up a little bit, and our yields were pretty good.” Rick Pearson owns a farm in Buhl. While he says he hopes prices recover in 2025, he points to something else that could play a big factor this year. “I mean everything’s kind of based on fuel price, so if fuel price goes down generally a lot of our prices will drop and I don’t see commodity prices going up to much but if our cost go down that will help us.”

While some farming sectors, like livestock, did see a strong 2024, Ellis says the market as a whole was down six percent. And looking ahead to this year, it’s not looking much better. “In Idaho, the crop industry is going to continue to face some challenges, and some instances some real challenges, but financially the crop sector in Idaho will continue to be challenged.”

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