Tewalt Talks About Key Role Trade Plays In Idaho Ag

Every year, international trade becomes more important for the Idaho farming community. Chanel Tewalt, Director of the Idaho State Department of Agriculture, said many outside of the Gem state may not appreciate the role Idaho plays on the international scene.

“50% to 60% of Idaho wheat gets exported overseas," she noted. "Over one in six rows of potatoes gets exported overseas as well. You know, we have this huge, huge trade opportunity, dairy is our number one export, but we have to spend a lot of time doing trade work strategically with industry to make sure that we are going and pushing on the places that makes sense for them.”

Photo: Glenn Vaagen

Idaho Products Travel Around The Globe

While Canada remains the top trade partner for Idaho, Tewalt says their products are finding their way into grocery stores in every corner of the world. She noted 2025 has already been busy when it comes to trade missions, and that will continue through the end of the year.

“We will be in Mexico, the UK, Vietnam and I bet we probably have one more visit in there as well and all of those visits are done in tandem with our industry and we're working on specific things," Tewalt said. "Last fall we were with our governor on a trade mission to Taiwan and Japan. And Japan is a place where we are really, really pushing on fresh potato access. And from a national perspective, potato access in Japan is probably around $150 million opportunity. That doesn't mean it's just all Idaho, but we can't forget Idaho produces well over a third of the nation's market share for potatoes. So if there's $150 million opportunity potentially to realize in Japan, that's going to impact, positively impact, Idaho's growers.”

Tewalt noted those relationships with Idaho based industries, as well as Governor Brad Little have resulted in good outcomes for Idaho farm families.