Small Idaho farms struggle to survive

MENAN, Idaho (KIFI) - Even as snow dusts the plains of Menan, its farmers are still hard at work.

Jordon Raymond grows corn and hay across 900 acres of land.

“It used to be that you could work all summer and then kinda take it easier in the wintertime,” he said. “Unless you’re running 10,000 acres, it’s hard to take winters off anymore.”

The Raymonds have owned the land for four generations.

“I think this farm’s been here for probably at least 100 years or so,” Jordan confirmed.

But Jordon can’t run it like his father did.

"It’s hard, it’s really hard, to run a farm this size and just do farming,” he said.

The U.S.D.A.’s Census of Agriculture, which is published every five years and was updated Wednesday, shows Idaho is losing more farms than the national average. From 2017 to 2022, nearly one in ten Idaho farms shut down.

While the census shows the Gem State lost more than 2,000 farms over five years, the average farm grew 8 percent in size. That means small outfits are shutting down at a much faster rate.

With support from his family, Jordon has transformed the family business into Dallas Raymond & Sons Farming and Trucking.

"I mean, this whole setup is $100,000 or more,” said Jordon’s cousin Jacob Fullmer, who also works on the farm, gesturing to their big rig. “And to justify the cost of buying something like that, you really gotta spread it out and use it in any possible way you can.”

“It helps soften the blow on the farm side to make all the payments work,” Jordon added.

Unlike most businesses, farming doesn’t bring in money until harvest time.

“You spend spring, summer, and fall working with little-to-no income,” Jordon explained. “You’re pulling in anywhere from $500,000 to $800,000 worth of expenses.”

As a result, Jordan said, the vast majority of farms rely on loans.

“I know a lot of farmers,” he asserted. “I would say probably 97 percent of them are running off of borrowed money.”

But those loans are getting harder to pay off.

“Input’s gotten a lot higher,” Fullmer said. “I feel like prices have been pretty volatile, too. The cost of fuel and land. Parts are really hard to come by nowadays.”

“This year alone, the interest rates on these bank loans will tear you apart,” Jordon added.

So Jordon has turned to trucking, ranching, and other sources of year-round income.

“You’ve gotta diversify to be able to make it anymore,” he said. “Either you’re big or you diversify.”

Big farms make big money and don’t have these worries as a result, Jordon said. When small farms are in trouble, big farms often swoop in and buy them.

That’s why the U.S.D.A. census reported Idaho lost nearly nine percent of its farms (compared to seven percent nationwide), the Gem State lost one percent less farmland than the national average.

Jordon told Local News 8 he’d like to be solvent without needing side gigs.

“But that’s not necessarily the game anymore,” he said.