Ranchers in the West have typically grazed cattle on summer pastures — often in the mountains or desert rangelands near their ranch or on federal Bureau of Land Management or Forest Service allotments — while growing hay at home to feed the cows during winter.
TWIN FALLS — Jon Maughan has reitred as managing director of the Mid Mountain region of Rabo AgriFinance after a 40-year banking career in southern Idaho. Brek Cranney has been named the new managing director.
Brian Olmstead has seen it all during his 21 years with the Twin Falls Canal Co. — droughts, a 100-year-storm, devastating winter floods and, yes, a few “normal” years too.
MCCALL — The Idaho Association of Commerce & Industry has just presented Clif Bar Baking Company of Twin Falls with its 2021 Environmental Excellence Award during IACI’s 47th Public Policy Conference in McCall over the weekend.
A first-time author has won a national award for her children’s picture book about Idaho farm life.
JEROME — Scoular is hiring at its Jerome processing plant. The plant will be making Emerge, a barley-based protein source for aquaculture and pet food.
BURLEY — When you think agriculture in Idaho, Cassia County is the poster child. Cassia ranks an unchallenged No. 1 in the state when it comes to total farm revenue and produces a wide variety of agricultural commodities on a large scale.
HAGERMAN — The trout swarm in a wriggling ball for a second, like a flock of underwater starlings. A second later they scatter. Every few moments you hear a splash when one of them leaps above the water to gobble up a pellet of food floating on the water’s surface.
Agriculture is big business in Idaho’s Magic Valley area. As in, really big business.
GEORGETOWN — More than two dozen cattle were killed in a semi versus elk crash in Bear Lake County early Friday morning.
BURLEY — Bedlam on Idaho Highway 30 and Bedke Boulevard ensued Jan. 19 after calves escaped from Burley Livestock Auction. Some of them made their way onto the highway, where they were struck by vehicles.
TWIN FALLS — The Magic Valley is already one of America’s biggest agricultural hubs, but a new project could take the region’s food innovation capabilities to the next level.
Aquaculture, or fish farming, is the world’s fastest-growing food production sector. But the key ingredients in commercial fish feed – fishmeal and fish oil – come from an unsustainable source: small fish, such as anchovies and herring, near the base of ocean food webs.
BOISE — A Shoshone dairy and its owner have agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor after it allowed manure to get into a canal during 2017’s record floods.
BUHL — The Magic Valley dairy industry has gone through brutal lows and record highs during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Idaho had a relatively wet summer this year, and we dodged the August smoke season that has become a regular event over the last 25 years.
Just south of Ketchum, as you approach the junction of Idaho Highway 75 and Gimlet Road, a simple sign marks the turnoff for the Sawtooth Botanical Garden to the east. This 5-acres oasis showcases native and cultivated plants that thrive at high elevation and dramatizes the calming effect ga…
HAILEY — A bronze sculpture in the works to celebrate the sheep heritage of the Wood River Valley could get company.
ABERDEEN — For several decades, flowering rush remained a problem with no clear solution for the managers of the Aberdeen-Springfield Canal Co.
SODA SPRINGS — A farmer who raises dry-land grain in Caribou County said a Saturday morning fire destroyed his shop, as well as a truck filled with grain, farm equipment and new and vintage vehicles that were inside of it.
TWIN FALLS — Chobani continues to branch out beyond yogurt.
The Preston City Council voted at its July 13 meeting to sell the 5.5 acres on which the rodeo arena is built, to the county for $125,000.
BOISE — The Idaho Organization of Resource Councils has joined several other worker advocacy organizations in a civil rights complaint, claiming meat processing companies Tyson Foods and JBS USA engaged in racial discrimination through their workplace policies around the COVID-19 pandemic.
PARMA — After being slated for closure in 2009, the University of Idaho Parma Research and Extension Center survived the financial crisis and university budget cuts. It has far from thrived though, according to Michael Parrella, dean of the university’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
POCATELLO – Idaho farmers planted significantly more dry bean acres this year, as rising farm-level prices for that crop make it an attractive option for a lot of producers.
POCATELLO – Scoular Co. has announced it will build a barley manufacturing facility that will initially process 1.9 million bushels of barley annually.
TWIN FALLS — A Lamb Weston employee died in an industrial accident at the company’s Twin Falls facility Wednesday morning.
NAMPA — As meat packing plants across the country are reducing production and shutting down amid COVID-19 concerns, small Treasure Valley ranchers and meat producers are thriving in many cases, without relying on large processing plants.
AMERICAN FALLS — Farmers throughout Power and Caribou counties have been going online and filling out a quick application seeking to secure grant funds to boost their local schools’ science, technology, engineering and mathematics programs.
Thanks to some kids with an imagination, a family who loves him and modern technology, Bruce the Goose has a new lease on life.
Three farmers in the American Falls area are entering their second year of raising specialized wheat varieties bred to appeal to health-conscious consumers who are wary of gluten and carbohydrates.
BOISE — A tractor raffle program that raises scholarship money for Idaho FFA members will look a little different this year.
A suspect has been cited for allegedly illegally dumping 13 cattle carcasses on public land just outside of Shoshone, according to a Bureau of Land Management press release.
IDAHO FALLS — A University of Idaho cereals pathologist is advising Idaho farmers to plant spring wheat varieties that are resistant to a destructive fungal pathogen recently detected in the region, called stripe rust.
The smell of manure still bothers Terumi Takenaga and she can’t stand the taste of mutton to this day — both lingering effects of the time she spent in Japanese-American internment camps about 80 years ago.
It’s that time of year in Aberdeen when the pungent aroma of deep-fried french fries wafts through the hallways of the Marshall building on the campus of the University of Idaho’s Aberdeen Research & Extension Center.
The smell of manure still bothers Terumi Takenaga and she can’t stand the taste of mutton to this day — both lingering effects of the time she spent in Japanese-American internment camps about 80 years ago.
BOISE — A bill was introduced in the Idaho Legislature Jan. 29 that, if passed, would begin the process of adjudicating water rights in the Bear River Basin.
DOWNEY — Attorneys will soon file briefs in a lawsuit testing if the federal government has the right to thin woody vegetation in Idaho roadless areas without first conducting environmental reviews.
BOISE — A creamy-white truck with black cow spots weaves through a west Boise neighborhood on a Wednesday night. Kris Wilson drives cautiously — there’s fragile cargo on board — but not too slowly. He has 100 deliveries to make in the next six hours.
RUPERT — It’s called the kitchen sink treatment among the scientists involved in a four-year, 10-state research project analyzing how to replenish depleted soils in potato rotations.
Mountain snowpack levels throughout Idaho entered January well below normal, but irrigators can breathe a bit easier thanks to a recent turn toward wetter weather and strong reservoir carryover.
The U.S. dairy industry, the largest in the world, is under severe pressure as the consumption habits of Americans shift.
CAREY — There won’t be any subdivisions on the Cenarrusa Ranch anytime soon.
A Beef Quality Assurance certification training has been scheduled for 1 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Jan. 4 in Burley.
BOISE — The Idaho Water Resource Board delivered a report to House Speaker Scott Bedke, R-Oakley, on Dec. 18, summarizing the significant progress that’s been made toward meeting or exceeding milestones necessary to rebuild the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer to long-term sustainable levels.
Idaho Power Co. officials worry a state program working to reverse declining Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer levels has grown to the point that it could adversely affect winter hydro-power generation.
RUPERT — At the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve, a giant sugar beet will descend from the sky on the Rupert Square as part of the city’s newest community holiday party.
SEATTLE (AP) — Last month, a net pen used for fish farming and operated by Cooke Aquaculture Pacific began to dip below the surface off Bainbridge Island.
BOISE – Idaho will retain its spot as the nation’s top barley-producing state this year, and Idaho barley farmers produced almost a third of the United States’ total barley supply.
The grandson of a longtime rancher and former state lawmaker has recently started a program that has in some ways made him the black sheep of Idaho’s ovine community.
An early October cold snap that brought record low temperatures to many parts of Idaho affected thousands of acres of crops that were still in the ground.
TWIN FALLS — He remembers the day he first laid eyes on the combine.
BURLEY — Even on a 100-degree day, workers on the warehouse floor can see clouds of their own breath. They can smell french fries, too, as they walk between royal-blue steel beams and boxes upon boxes of frozen fries and appetizers.
JEROME — When a group of dairy families opened Idaho Milk Products a decade ago, the company faced a murky future at best. The $80 million facility began churning out cream and protein during a recession, at a time of painfully low milk prices.
