10 CapitalPress.com
January 16, 2015
Idaho
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Idaho cattlemen hail proposed processing plant
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
KUNA, Idaho — A new $100
million beef processing plant in
Southwestern Idaho will save live-
stock producers in the region a lot of
money on freight.
The facility, which is expected
to open in the fall of 2016, was an-
nounced Jan. 6 by J.R. Simplot Co.,
which will partner on the venture
with Texas-based Caviness Beef
Packers.
Idaho has been without a major
slaughter facility since 2011 and
dairy and beef cattle producers cur-
rently have to send most of their
cows out of state to be processed.
“One of the biggest costs we have
is freight because all our cows are
shipped out of state to be processed,”
said Blackfoot rancher Chris Dalley.
“That (will make) a huge difference
on the price of our animals.”
The 300,000-square-foot facility
near Kuna will have the capacity to
process 1,700 head a day.
“That’s a lot of cattle. It will be
a top-of-the-line deal,” Dalley said.
Thousands of cows leave the state
each year to be processed in Texas,
Arizona, California, Nebraska and
other places, said Idaho Cattle As-
sociation President Carl Lufkin, who
said his freight bill amounts to about
$10 per hundredweight.
“I think it will be a real boost to
producers in Idaho to have this plant
here,” said Lufkin, a Leadore ranch-
er. “It’s super-good news for the in-
dustry, particularly in Idaho.”
“It will definitely make things
easier for producers in the state,”
said Rogerson rancher Jared Brack-
ett.
The plant will primarily harvest
cull cows and bulls from North-
west dairy farms and cattle ranches
throughout the Intermountain West,
according to a news release. It will
include hide and rendering process-
ing and also be able to process niche-
fed beef programs.
The pre-packaged boxed beef the
facility produces will be marketed to
food-service and retail outlets.
Idaho producers have been with-
out a major beef processing plant
since the XL Four Star Beef facili-
ty in Nampa shut its doors in June
2011. Swift & Co. had closed that
plant in 2005 and XL reopened it in
2007.
Simplot also closed its Nampa
beef slaughter plant in 2003 and Ty-
son Foods closed its Boise facility in
2006.
Kuna area dairyman Lou Murgoi-
tio said it costs him about $2,800 to
ship a 48,000-pound load of cows to
Fresno, Calif.
The savings on freight costs for
Idaho producers resulting from the
new facility will be significant, said
Murgoitio, whose operation is locat-
ed about 10 miles from where the
facility will be built.
“It’s monumental for the state of
Idaho ... when it comes to the freight
side of it,” he said of the facility,
which will operate under the name,
CS Beef Packers LLC. “It’s a very
major plant (and) it’s what Idaho’s
needed for quite a while.”
Otter’s proposed budget includes Idaho farm gate
$1.53 million more for ag research receipts, net income
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
BOISE — Gov. Butch Otter’s
proposed fiscal year 2016 budget
includes an additional $1.53 mil-
lion for agricultural research and
extension and an extra $600,000
for secondary ag education pro-
grams.
It also includes more mon-
ey for wolf control efforts and
rangeland management pro-
grams, as well as an additional
$750,000 for sage grouse preser-
vation efforts.
The additional $1.53 mil-
lion for University of Idaho’s
agricultural research and ex-
tension budget completes the
governor’s “5 in 5” promise
to reinstate, in five years, the
$5 million in ongoing funding
UI’s College of Agricultural
and Life Sciences lost during
the last recession.
“I made them a promise and
this will complete my promise,”
he told reporters Jan. 12 after his
annual State of the State address.
“The work they do has helped us
an awful lot. A big part our econ-
omy is agricultural products.”
Idaho Farm Bureau Federa-
tion spokesman John Thompson
said it’s good news to see the ad-
ditional money for CALS includ-
Otto Kitsinger/Associated Press
Idaho Gov. Butch Otter delivers his State of the State address in the
House chambers at the state Capitol on Monday, Jan. 12, in Boise.
ed in the governor’s proposed
budget but cautioned that the
legislature still has to approve it.
“They’ve been hit hard and
we’d like to see that funding re-
instated,” Thompson said.
Otter’s proposed budget in-
cludes an additional $400,000
for a wolf control board that was
created last year. The board re-
ceived $400,000 in state money
in fiscal 2015 to help fund lethal
wolf control efforts and lawmak-
ers who pushed for the board’s
creation expect it to receive that
same amount for five years.
“Right on schedule,” Sen.
Bert Brackett, the Republican
rancher from Rogerson who
carried the bill that created the
board, said about the governor’s
$400,000 request for fiscal 2016.
The governor’s budget in-
cludes $151,000 to fund two
full-time rangeland management
positions at the Idaho State De-
partment of Agriculture to help
manage the increasing number of
range photo monitoring requests
the ISDA is receiving from live-
stock producers who graze cattle
on public lands.
Otter also asked lawmakers
for $221,000 to fund rangeland
resource management and forest
research economist positions.
Idaho Cattle Association
Executive Vice President Wyatt
Prescott said the funding for wolf
control, sage grouse protection
and rangeland management ef-
forts shows that the governor,
a rancher, understands natural
resource issues and how they im-
pact the state.
“It just reiterates the gov-
ernor’s commitment to com-
mon-sense management of
wolves and our wildlife,” he said.
“That’s reflective of the admin-
istration’s ability to fully under-
stand the issues at hand and how
they affect not just our industry,
but the entire state.”
During his state of the state
address, Otter gave a shout-out
to the five rangeland fire protec-
tion associations that have been
formed in southern Idaho since
2012.
His budget includes an ad-
ditional $120,000 to train and
equip the associations, which
consist largely of ranchers and
farmers, to help the U.S. Bu-
reau of Land Management fight
rangeland fires.
set records in 2014
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
BOISE — A strong perfor-
mance by Idaho’s livestock sec-
tor drove total farm gate cash
receipts in the state to a record
$9.7 billion in 2014.
That was a 16 percent in-
crease over the previous record
of $8.4 billion set in 2013 and
it was the fourth straight year
of record farm cash receipts in
Idaho.
“It’s been a phenomenal
year for Idaho agriculture, may-
be the best ever,” University of
Idaho agricultural economist
Garth Taylor told lawmakers
Jan. 9.
Net farm income in Idaho
totaled $4.53 billion in 2014, a
46 percent increase over 2013
and the second straight record
year for that category.
Net farm income in Idaho
increased 48 percent in 2013
compared with 2012.
Those estimates are con-
tained in UI’s annual, “The Fi-
nancial Condition of Idaho Ag-
riculture Report,” which was
released this week. They are
based on a calendar year.
“Agriculture today is bigger
than it ever has been in the state
of Idaho in real dollar terms,”
Taylor said.
The increases this year were
so large that UI economists had
to rebuild their graph charts,
said UI Teton County extension
agent Ben Eborn.
“We had to increase the
size of them by a third because
the ... numbers wouldn’t fit on
them,” he said.
The gains were driven most-
ly by a large increase in cash re-
ceipts among Idaho’s livestock
sector. Receipts for cattle and
calves increased 29 percent to
a record $2.46 billion and milk
receipts increased 26 percent to
a record $3.25 billion.
Cash receipts for “other”
livestock, including sheep and
goats, increased 14 percent to
$225 million.
Combined, livestock re-
ceipts increased 27 percent to a
record $5.9 billion, far surpass-
ing last year’s record of $4.7
billion.
Crop cash receipts increased
2 percent overall, despite rev-
enue declines among many
major commodities, including
wheat, barley, dry beans and
potatoes.
Pipeline could spare irrigators curtailments
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
HAGERMAN, Idaho —
Groundwater irrigators sub-
ject to the Rangen, Inc., trout
farm’s delivery call say they’re
on schedule to finish construc-
tion of a pipeline to transport
mitigation water just in time to
avoid curtailments throughout
the Eastern Snake River Plain.
Idaho Department of Wa-
ter Resources Director Gary
Spackman ruled last winter
junior groundwater irrigators
west of the Great Rift near
American Falls owe Rangen
9.1 cubic feet per second
of water to offset decreased
spring flows caused by their
pumping. Complicating mat-
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ters, a district judge’s subse-
quent order expanded the call
to encompass the entire Snake
Plain.
Spackman allowed the
pumpers to phase in the obliga-
tion over five years, beginning
with 3.4 cubic feet per second
in 2014. He granted them cred-
it for 3 cubic feet per second of
the first year’s obligation, rec-
ognizing Idaho Ground Water
Appropriators’ past recharge
and mitigation efforts. But he
set a Jan. 19 deadline for them
to provide the remaining 0.4
cubic feet per second of their
obligation and avert curtail-
ment of groundwater irrigators
junior to 1985.
Though irrigators don’t
start watering crops until early
April, dairies and commercial,
municipal and industrial us-
ers would still be affected by
winter curtailment, said IGWA
Executive Director Lynn Tom-
inaga. IGWA’s 2015 obligation
for 5.6 cubic feet per second of
water is due on April 1.
IGWA has been rushing to
build a $3 million, 1.8-mile
pipeline to transport spring
water from Magic Springs
trout farm to Rangen. “If they
get a curtailment letter, it’s go-
Courtesy of SPF Engineering
Plastic pipe is positioned into place to be buried. The pipeline to
transport mitigation water owed by junior groundwater irrigators
to the Rangen, Inc., trout farm in Hagerman is on schedule to be
completed before a Jan. 19 deadline.
ing to be a wakeup call for a lot
of people who never thought
they’d have to supply water
to an entity 120 miles away
when the water wouldn’t get
there for between 100 and 200
years,” Tominaga said.
Bob Hardgrove, principal
engineer with Boise-based
SPF Engineering, said a con-
struction project that would
normally take six months
has been condensed to two
months.
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“When I texted the con-
tractor this morning, he was
cautiously optimistic that it’s
going to happen,” Hardgrove
said. “We got very lucky on
the weather.”
To save time, construction
supplies were pre-ordered
before J.C. Constructors of
Meridian was chosen as con-
tractor, and a 400-horsepower
pump station was assembled
in the factory, to be delivered
next week to Magic Springs as
a single unit.
Hardgrove said the 24-inch
pipeline has a 10 cubic feet per
second capacity. He said 1.5
miles of high-density polyeth-
ylene pipe has already been
assembled and buried. Basalt
was blasted to install another
1,000 feet, and insulated, steel
pipe awaits completion over a
cliff and rock field.
“I said (to the contractor), ‘I
want you to do the work in a
third of the time, work through
the winter and holidays, and oh
by the way, if you don’t get it
done, it shuts down half of the
state’s agriculture,” Hardgrove
said.
Rangen attorney Fritz Hae-
mmerle couldn’t be reached
for comment but has described
the pipeline as a “Band-Aid
solution” in the past, con-
cerned it doesn’t address the
underlying problem of “unmit-
igated” groundwater pumping.