Record year for Idaho ag revenue only part of the story

By Sean Ellis

Idaho Farm Bureau Federation

BOISE – Idaho farmers and ranchers brought in a record $11.3 billion in farm-gate receipts in 2024, but that doesn’t tell the real story: many farmers are struggling financially with high input costs and low commodity prices.

That estimate, which would be a record for total Idaho farm-gate revenue if realized, is somewhat misleading because many if not most farmers in Idaho, and the U.S., faced major financial challenges last year.

“If you talk to farmers … that ($11.3 billion total) feels like a counterfeit number because people aren’t doing as well as that top-line number would seem to indicate,” University of Idaho Agricultural Economist Brett Wilder said Dec. 18 during U of I’s annual Ag Outlook Seminar.

While gross Idaho farm revenue is estimated to be up this year, farm production expenses remain elevated as well. And net crop revenue is forecast to be down in 2024, while net revenue from livestock is forecast to be up.

That means many Idaho crop farmers are not doing near as well as that record $11.3 billion number would seem to indicate.

Nationwide, USDA estimates that total U.S. farm-gate revenue was down 1 percent in 2024 and net farm income was down 4 percent.

Farm-level prices that Idaho ranchers received for their cattle in 2024 were at record levels, and milk prices were on the rise during the second half of the year.

Prices that Idaho farmers received for their crops, however, were generally on the decrease in 2024.

So, while Idaho’s livestock industry generally fared well in 2024, not so for many of Idaho’s crop farmers.

USDA estimates that total U.S. crop receipts fell 9 percent in 2024 vs. 2023. Total farm-gate receipts from livestock, on the other hand, are forecast to be up 8 percent.

Wilder and other U of I ag economists are forecasting that total Idaho net farm income was up 12 percent in 2024 compared with 2023.

But, again, most of that increase is due to the state’s livestock sector, which in general performed much better than Idaho’s crop sector.

“A large portion of our agricultural economy is centered around the livestock sector and the strength of the livestock sector is” what’s driving that 12 percent increase in net farm income, Wilder said. “If we were looking just at the crop sector, I would expect us to trend more in line with the U.S.”

While most farm-level crop prices are on the decline, overall production costs are only down slightly, several presenters said during the Ag Outlook Seminar, and a  slight decrease in input costs is not near enough to offset significant declines in farm-level commodity prices.

“We have a difficult environment for commodity prices,” said Doug Robison, the Idaho president for AgWest Farm Credit.

According to an October survey of agricultural producers by the Purdue Center for Commercial Agriculture, higher input costs were the main concern for farmers, followed by lower crop prices.

Wilder expects crop farmers will continue to face tough economic challenges in 2025.

“The crop sector is going to continue to be squeezed,” he said during the Ag Outlook Seminar. Many farmers will … “continue to feel economic pain.”