Salute to Idaho Agriculture: U of I Ag Outlook Seminar

TWIN FALLS, Idaho (KMVT/KSVT) — The University of Idaho held its first in-person ag outlook seminar since 2019 yesterday at the College of Southern Idaho, and that’s the focus of this week’s Salute to Idaho Agriculture.

The University of Idaho has been hosting their ag outlook seminar for many years, but due to COVID the 2020 version was cancelled and the previous two years were over Zoom.

This year however the seminar has gotten back out on the road and this entire week they have already made stops in Idaho Falls, Twin Falls and Nampa before finishing up on Friday in Lewiston.

The ag outlook seminar at CSI had roughly 20 people in attendance and was reorganized by the University of Idaho’s Brett Lawson who has a goal for everyone who comes to this event.

“So the goal of the Idaho ag outlook is to give producers and stakeholders in the agriculture industry what an idea of how did we really do in 2023, where do we sit with our major commodities and what is our outlook heading into 2024,” said Brett Lawson an assistant professor at U of I.

Some of the topics covered included financial forecasts, as well as a crop-by-crop outlook with each group being presented by members of the U of I faculty and other experts in their respective fields.

One farmer from Jerome spoke about what made her come out to the event.

“It looked like it had a lot of really good information on what the market trends were going to be doing in this coming year in 2024 as related to ag. And right now we really need to be planning what we’re going to plant and our crops and get our budgets set for going to the bank and getting operating loans and this will be a lot of really good information to make those plans over the next month to six weeks,” Lisa Callen, a farmer said.

If you missed the ag outlook seminar this year you are out of luck, at least until next year. Because Lawson says the event will be continuing in the coming years.

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