Baker Co. bucks ag’s down trend — barely

Overall, the state’s ag sales, including crops and livestock, totaled $4.1 billion, a drop of almost 15 percent compared with 2008.

It was the biggest one-year decline since 1976, according to a report released this week by Oregon State University.

Baker County farmers and ranchers, meanwhile, recorded a minuscule increase, less than half of 1 percent, in gross sales in 2009 — $66 million compared with $65.9 million.

Average prices dropped for three of the county’s four biggest agricultural commodities: beef cattle, alfalfa hay and wheat.

Baker County’s agricultural sales in 2009 were led, as usual, by beef cattle.

Ranchers sold beef cattle worth $41.5 million in 2009.

That was up about 3.8 percent from 2008’s total of $40 million in sales, according to the OSU report.

Both years’ totals fell short of the two previous years, however. Gross sales amounted to $47.5 million in 2007, and $42.9 million in 2006.

The commodity that prevented Baker County’s gross sales from mimicking the statewide decline last year was potatoes, said Cory Parsons, OSU Extension Service ag agent in Baker County.

Potato growers negotiated a higher contract price last year — an average of $8.07 per hundredweight compared with $5.75 in 2008.

Although production increased only modestly — from 1.9 million hundredweight in 2008 to 2.1 million — the higher contract prices pushed gross sales last year to $16.9 million, compared with $10.9 million in 2008.

Despite those figures, 2009 was “a tough year to raise potatoes in Baker County, what with three hailstorms,” said Jan Kerns.

She and her husband, Tim, raise potatoes on their Rainbow Ranch west of Haines.

Besides hail, growers had to endure consistently high prices for fertilizer, fuel and other necessities, Jan Kerns said.

“I think what’s happening in Baker County is reflective of the national economy,” she said. “We just have to ride it out.”

The increases in gross sales for beef cattle and potatoes offset declines in 2009 sales of the county’s two other agriculture mainstays: alfalfa hay and wheat.

• Alfalfa hay sales plummeted from $7.5 million in 2008 to $3.4 million in 2009.

The decline was due largely to plummeting prices — from an average of $190 per ton in 2008 to $85 in 2009.

Alfalfa prices had risen sharply in 2008 due to drought that reduced supplies, and high demand from the dairy industry, Parsons said.

Last year, by contrast, growing conditions were better, which increased the supply, but demand for hay dropped as ranchers culled cattle herds and dairy farmers scaled back production across the country.

• Wheat sales dropped from $3.7 million in 2008 to $1.5 million in 2009.

The average price per bushel dropped from $7.50 in 2008 to $5.30 in 2009.

Wheat growers in the county harvested slightly fewer acres — 6,750 in 2009 compared with 7,000 acres in 2008 — but average yields increased slightly, from 83 bushels per acre in 2008 to 85 bushels last year.

Parsons said 2010 could be another difficult year for wheat growers.

Futures prices are similar to last year’s, and transporting wheat to the Port of Portland will be complicated when locks on Columbia River dams are closed for maintenance in late summer, he said.

As for beef prices, Parsons said the outlook for this spring and fall is slightly better.

A record corn crop means feed costs at feedlots drop, and that in turn results in higher prices for cattle, he said.