Is there anything more glorious than a bright, late-summer morning in southern Idaho, the bounty of our Magic Valley spread out before us in a carpet of golds and greens, every day bringing in the valley’s harvest?
It is a daily reminder of why we wouldn’t live anywhere than this strip of irrigated farmland, its slowly rolling earth. It is what we do well, grow crops and other foodstuffs for national and world markets.
We should be mindful of this, particularly at this time of year when the flat light of mornings and evenings show off our bountiful landscapes. It is indeed a Good Earth, and we are blessed to inhabit it at this time and place.
What, you say? With a pandemic virus raging, a political world in turmoil, cities burning, people angry at just about everything. But how do these compare to the regular cycles of the year, the harvests of alfalfa, wheat and barley, closely followed by corn and beans and then beets and potatoes? Day follows day with fast consistency, everyone a new awakening; as the 19th Century hymn says, “For the Beauty of the Earth.”
And so it is again in the Magic Valley as summer tumbles into autumn, fairs are held, crops brought in. More good news on the agricultural front:
Scoular plans a multi-million dollar barley processing facility in Jerome County. The move reflects the continued importance of barley as a southern Idaho major crop. Barley has long been prominent in East Idaho, but new varieties and a growing plant-based protein market for feedstuffs are expanding barley’s versatility and markets.
Bean acreage is also up almost 40 percent, with pintos close to $40/cw, almost double last year. It’s one of the best crops this year on profitability. Acreage has gone from about 65,000 acres adding another 47,000 acres in 2020. Farmers can follow the commodity reports and investment usually flows to the highest rate of return. (Idaho Farm Bureau Quarterly. Summer 2020).
Rightists may grumble, but the new Canada-Mexico-U.S. trade agreement is also likely to push Idaho’s ag production and processing past $30 billion in the years ahead. The barley protein production heralds a likely a new wave of production agriculture. It’s a plant-based concentrate likely to become an important fish food and cattle supplement.
Early southern Idaho pioneers were happy to get 25 bushels to the acre of grains; this last year, a Buhl area farmer produced over 200 bushels to the acre, the best in the whole country.
Better genetics, application of nutrients and careful application of water has made the difference; our ancestors would be truly astonished to see the productivity, coming as they did to a high desert of rocky soil and little but much promise.
Those “inputs” and of course the sweat equity of early farm work were the critical pieces. The land itself lay waiting, the right combination. As the writer Robert Frost put it, “the land was ours before we were the land’s.” (The Gift Outright, 1942).
It’s easy to forget these features of our land and human landscape, the political and practical conservatism of our state and region. We don’t go off half-loaded on ideological tangents; there’s little time for abstract appeals.
Everything has a time and a purpose says Ecclesiastes. Together, they have brought us the bounty of the Earth. It’s a good time of year to remember both where we came from as well as the opportunities ahead.
Stephen Hartgen of Twin Falls is a retired five-term Republican member of the Idaho House of Representatives, where he served as chairman of the Commerce & Human Resources Committee. Previously, he was editor and publisher of The Times-News (1982-2005). He is the author of the new book “Tradition & Progress: Southern Idaho’s Growth Since 1990.” He can be reached at Stephen_Hartgen@hotmail.com.