It comes as no surprise that 2023 was a rough year for most dairy producers across the U.S. with low milk prices, high input costs and tight margins.

As the crop planting season approaches for most regions in Idaho, understanding what operating costs will look like in 2024 is crucial for farm businesses.

In an exchange parroted ad nauseam with my buddies with every charming ounce of teenage wit available to us in the mid-2000s, two movie pirates discuss their Plan B should Plan A go awry: “What if the worst should happen?” “Keep to the Code.”

“I keep saying, ‘This was a year that we’d never had before,’” says Keith Fehringer, after two decades as an agronomist with Bingham Ag Services in American Falls.

Keeping and feeding cows through the winter is likely one of the largest reoccurring investments you’ll make in your cow-calf operation. A lot goes into the final calculation, but the return value from tracking winter cow costs is well worth it.

Expanding working facilities. Switching to a feeding software. Building another sorting pen. Adding calving pens. We all have something we wish we did sooner. Once we finally got around to it, we wonder, “Why the heck did I wait so long?”

Inflation, oil prices and Federal Reserve policy are the three prongs on the trident impacting agriculture.