Agriculture is a Growth Industry
Dan Newhouse is a farmer, and thus possesses the farmer’s long-cultivated cautious attitude about assuming that good times in agriculture are permanent or that there’s no storm cloud—a literal or figurative one—just over the horizon.
He has personal experience to back him up. Newhouse has been involved in farming since the late 1970s, and his family has been farming in the Yakima Valley since 1918. Speaking as just one of the looming thunderheads that farmers worry about, Newhouse says, “The one constant in farm prices is change. When prices are up, everything looks good and memories are short.”
Newhouse is also director of the Washington State Department of Agriculture, appointed to that post in 2009, so it is his official duty to worry about the status and future of the Washington farmer.
Newhouse might be reasonably excused for not getting too enthusiastic about the current boom cycle in agriculture, one that has had some giddy observers predicting the end of the need for crop-price-support programs. But even he will allow that, while other industries such as construction or financial services continue to struggle, “Agriculture is a bright spot in Washington state’s economy currently, and has been throughout this recession.”
Indeed. Washington’s agricultural output reached a value of $8.25 billion in 2010, the second highest on record (trailing only 2007’s $8.35 billion), and a 13 percent improvement over 2009. While the numbers on 2011 are still being compiled, the reports from the fields and orchards of Washington are “very positive,” says Phil DiPofi, president and CEO of Northwest Credit Services, a Spokane-based farm lender. “Ag in general has been very strong for the last seven or eight years at the macro level,” DiPofi says. “By and large, agricultural producers are doing well.”
Of course, this wouldn’t be a farm story without some cautionary notes. “There’s a little uncertainty circling around issues like labor, the farm bill, crop insurance, the value of the dollar,” DiPofi admits, “[but] 2011, as it closes out, has been a good year.”
Agriculture, he suggests, is “a real success story as part of the Northwest economy [and] it continues to be a strong economic driver.”
And aside from the ever unpredictable matter of weather, conditions seem to be lined up for a pleasant 2012, which will be welcome news for those gathering at events like this month’s Spokane Ag Expo (February 7–9), in the hundreds of communities that rely on equipment dealers, produce packing and
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