Searle: More Trade, Better Land Management Will Help Idaho Ag

This year has been a challenging one for the Idaho agriculture community for a variety of reasons.  Bryan Serale, President of the Idaho Farm Bureau Federation, said weather and wildfires hurt many producers this year.  But a bigger challenge for commodities of all shapes and sizes, the lack of trade deals, allowing Idaho’s goods to go out on the open market.

"We have perfect growing soils, we have rangelands, we just have a lot of that in our favor.  But the challenge is we have to export it.  We cannot, we cannot consume, but a small percentage of what we grow.  So that is critical for us as farmers and ranchers.”

Searle added when Idaho producers can’t trade, they can’t make money.

He added another problem the state if facing, is poor management of public lands.  He noted that about two-thirds of Idaho is federal lands, and 5%-6% is owned by the state.

“I think that there definitely needs to be better management, that goes on.  We need to thin our forests, and you know, some of that has started back up. But for years there, due to a spotted owl situation, and other situations, it just shut our forests down, which just let them grow and get out of out of control.  And so now you know, people are saying, well, it's too bad we’ve got fires, but in my mind it's too bad we allowed that fuel load to build.”

Searle said more proactive land management would benefit the farming community, and all of Idaho.

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