Idaho ag department adds positions to keep up with growth

By Sean Ellis

Idaho Farm Bureau Federation

BOISE – The Idaho State Department of Agriculture will add eight new positions to help it keep pace with an increased demand for services from the state’s farming and ranching industry.

“With the growth in agriculture, there’s more need for services from the department of agriculture, both from a regulatory standpoint and a food safety standpoint,” said ISDA Director Celia Gould.

The demand for services is booming in certain areas, which is a good problem to have because it shows the state’s agricultural sector is in good shape, she said.

“Yet we have to be able to manage both the expectations of our industry and make sure we don’t bust at the seams at the department of agriculture,” Gould said. “We want to continue to operate a lean, mean operation here.”

Idaho lawmakers this year granted ISDA authority to add the new positions and approved a $44.8 million fiscal year 2019 budget for the department, which represents a 1 percent decrease from the department’s current fiscal 2018 budget.

The department was able to shrink its total budget despite adding the new positions by reducing some excess spending authority in some divisions, said ISDA Chief of Operations Chanel Tewalt.

Among the eight positions the ISDA will add are two new inspectors for the department’s dairy program, which has seen its workload explode in recent years.

“There are more dairy cows coming on line all the time and Idaho’s milk processing capacity has grown by a huge amount in the last 11 years,” Gould said.

With about 600,000 milk cows, Idaho ranked third among the U.S. states in milk production in 2017 with a total output of 14.7 billion pounds.

Dairy is the state’s top farm commodity in terms of total farm cash receipts and Idaho dairy operations brought in $2.5 billion in revenue from milk sales last year, according to University of Idaho estimates.

Idaho’s total milk production has doubled over the past decade, Tewalt said.

“We really need to make sure we take care of this critical industry and I think adding more inspectors will help us do that,” she said.

The department will also add three new employees that will be trained to conduct voluntary on-farm readiness reviews and other outreach and education efforts for farmers who will be impacted by the FDA’s new produce safety rule.

The rule, a result of the Food Safety Modernization Act, will require farmers who grow produce that is likely to be consumed raw to meet a host of new food safety standards.

Idaho lawmakers passed a bill this year that moves authority for conducting on-farm inspections associated with the produce rule provisions from the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare to the ISDA. Industry requested that happen.

Regarding the rule’s inspection requirements, Tewalt said, the state has consistently heard from the agricultural industry: “We want the state to be the on-farm presence, not the federal government.”

Some provisions of the rule recently went into effect and compliance dates for most farmers are fast approaching.

Tewalt said that receiving authority to add the new produce safety rule positions will enable the ISDA to build an education and compliance program, which is currently in its beginning stages, and be prepared to conduct inspections when that time comes.

“It’s not as if we’re going to have inspectors out with clipboards in hand tomorrow,” she said.

ISDA also received authority to add two new inspectors for the department’s organic program, which has also seen an explosion in demand for services.

The number of operations certified as organic through the department has surged by 38 percent since 2014.

Lawmakers also gave the ag department authority to add a lab quality assurance manager that will oversee quality in the ISDA’s six laboratories.

That position will allow current lab employees to focus more time on what in some cases is a significant increase in demand for services.

For example, the animal health lab last year experienced a six-fold increase in lab tests related to a new cattle processing facility in Kuna.