Southern and East Idaho farmers who celebrated a heavy winter snowpack followed by a stormy spring as a reprieve from drought are now finding many of their fields have been hit with too much of a good thing. University of Idaho agriculture experts offering crop updates during a recent Ag Talk Tuesday online discussion reported lingering snow cover amid a cool and moist spring created ideal conditions for snow mold to damage winter cereal crops. Snow mold fungi grow at near-freezing conditions under prolonged snow cover, and damage has been extensive in winter wheat, especially in the Arbon and Malad valleys of Southeast Idaho.

The controversy over removing the four Lower Snake River dams in the Columbia basin has simmered for decades as salmon runs struggle. Yet Indigenous leaders and other proponents are watching closely as the nation’s biggest dam removal project gets underway in Northern California. In under two years, four Klamath River dams are set to be ripped out, freeing 400 miles of habitat for salmon and other threatened fish. The goal for the Nez Perce, whose ancestral lands span a large swath of present day Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana, and other tribes is to see something similar happen on the Snake. But big challenges remain.

The Biden administration is committed to destroying four hydroelectric dams on the Snake River in southeastern Washington state. Given the energy crisis in America—with two-thirds of the U.S. risking electricity outages this summer, including nearly everyone living west of the Mississippi, according to a recent warning from the North American Reliability Corp.—it’s a strange time to remove more than 3,000 megawatts of hourly capacity from the western interconnection electrical grid. Still, Biden announced that he is determined to "bring healthy and abundant salmon runs back to the Colorado River System." He meant the Columbia River System.

Idaho Wheat Commission and Idaho Grain Producers Association were privileged to host members of the Idaho Legislature, as well as several others involved in the Idaho agriculture industry for the Pacific Northwest Wheat Marketing Legislative Tour in Portland, Oregon this week. Participants were able to learn about and follow the wheat chain from field to fork, focusing on the export market that is vital for Idaho's wheat industry.

Half of the world’s wheat crop suffers from heat stress. A 1 °C increase in temperature can reduce wheat yields by as much as 6%. Drought and water availability also are critical, impacting the majority of wheat growing areas of the world.

U.S. wheat farmers have long played a major role in the fight against world hunger, which is why the U.S. Wheat Associates’ (USW) Trade Policy Team has been helping push for changes to the international food assistance programs under the 2023 Farm Bill. Among other things, proposed changes would reinstate the Food for Peace program’s original intent to allow U.S. farmers to share their harvest to fight global hunger.

USDA cut its forecast Wednesday for the value of U.S. ag exports in fiscal year 2023 to $181 billion, a $3.5 billion reduction from the agency’s February prediction of $184.5 billion...USDA left its sorghum export forecast unchanged at $800 million, but cut its wheat prediction $900 million to a total of $7.4 billion. The cut in wheat exports is “significantly due to smaller-than-expected winter wheat production for 2023-24.