06/03/05 Idaho dairy growth continues

The Idaho dairy industry has seen huge growth in the past decade and there's a lot more to come. Marv Patten is the dairy bureau chief for the Idaho Department of Agriculture. PATTEN "The growth of the dairy industry has been substantial. It's increased perhaps 800 percent. I believe in 1992 we were producing approximately two billions pounds of milk per year." That figure jumped to more than nine billion pounds last year. And one other figure, farm gate receipts. Patton says last year that figure was over 1.3 billion dollars and that doesn't include the processing end of the dairy industry. PATTEN "The first four months of this year there is a nine percent increase in milk production over last year. We see that that will continue." Jim Stewart of Canyon County has been a dairyman for more than five decades and he says it's a brand new ballgame today. STEWART "We've come to have larger dairies and fewer dairymen." And with that has come problems they never dreamed off 20 to 40 years ago. We'll look at that and other dairy issues through out the rest of this month. Voice of Idaho Agriculture Bill Scott