Move over potatoes; dairy is now Idaho's top agricultural commodity. And thanks to inexpensive land, abundant feeds, and a model relationship between dairy producers and environmental regulators, the industry keeps on growing.

A drive through the gently rolling countryside of the Snake River Plain in south-central Idaho winds through a fertile patchwork of alfalfa and corn fields alternating with fields of potatoes or beans. More widely spaced are black and white symbols of the area's leading agricultural wealth: Holstein cows. Jerome, Gooding, and Twin Falls counties are the epicenter for an agricultural shift of dramatic proportions. In 1997 Idaho farm income from dairy products outstripped the income from Idaho's signature product: potatoes. In 1998, dairy income outstripped income from both beef and potatoes.

Like oil drillers, Idaho's dairy producers hit a gusher and the market, particularly the cheese market, is wild for the stuff. Cheddar potato chips, cheese pretzels, and frozen baked potatoes topped with cheese all soak up Idaho milk supplies. In southern Idaho, cheese accounts for 14 percent of the Magic Valley's gross regional product.

Idaho's dairy industry generated more than $829 million in milk receipts and churned out more than $4.1 billion for Idaho's economy in 1998. Nationally, Idaho ranked sixth in milk production, behind California, Wisconsin, New York, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota. The skyrocket trajectory of Idaho's dairy industry is hard to miss. The state's herd topped 302,000 dairy cows on January 1, 1999, a 50 percent increase from the 193,000 counted just five years earlier by the Idaho Agricultural Statistics Service. In addition, behind every 10 dairy cows are 11 replacement heifers, bulls, and dry cows. That rule of thumb would bring the dairy herd to nearly 650,000 animals.

Dean Falk, UI dairy specialist at the Twin Falls Research & Extension Center, watches the industry grow day by day and yet remains amazed by the pace. Driving down a country road, he spots a new sign of that growth on the horizon. "Last week I was out here and they weren't that far along," he said, pointing to a long white line slung low to the earth. It's a new freestall dairy barn stretching more than 400 yards, a quarter mile. Next to it is another. The new dairy will milk 5,000 cows.

A healthy market for milk and cheese accounts for most of the growth, but other factors are also coming into play. An exodus of southern California dairy families in search of opportunity and a better quality of life is swelling the ranks of Idaho producers. Nearly every dairy producer in the state plans to expand or has given serious consideration to expansion.

Past president of the Idaho Holstein Association Dale Williams and his wife, Scotty, have raised and milked registered Holsteins most of their lives on their Will-O-Dell Farm near Filer. Some of his cows will produce more than 300,000 pounds, or 37,500 gallons, of milk during their lives, modern Methuselahs in an industry where the average cow might last two or three years. Now in partnership with their daughter Kathy and her husband, Erik (Pete) Peterson, they have doubled the dairy herd to 200 cows. "Two hundred cows," said Dale, amazed at the growth. "I said I'd never milk more than 100 cows years ago, but here we are."

Bill Stouder, a veterinarian, settled in Gooding County after traveling north from Chino, California, a robust agricultural area near Los Angeles. The move was a family venture, a search for a better place to raise his three sons. It also presented an opportunity to get into the dairy business. All three sons are now partners in a 750-cow dairy. Their sideline is sales of registered Holsteins.

Reagon and Susan Hatch met while attending the University of Idaho. They married, earned degrees in animal science, then returned to south-central Idaho.

Reagon worked various jobs in the dairy and feed industry before teaming with Harry Hoogland eight years ago to run a 350-cow dairy. Their business ties turned into a partnership with Reagon serving as managing partner of a new 1,500-cow dairy, Kowz R Us, that employs 15, including Susan as bookkeeper, drawing on the agribusiness courses she took at UI.

Although 1,500 cows ranks the dairy as one of the larger ones in the state, the target is moving ever upwards, with 2,000 to 4,000 cows considered a big operation today.

When Hoogland and Hatch decided to build their new dairy fouryears ago, their emphasis was on building the most efficient operation possible. "On a normal day here, it couldn't get any easier and we try to keep it that way," Hatch said. "It's still a lot of work. There's not a lot of fluff in this place. This place was built to milk cows."

Not that the dairy business is easy. It's just that running a professional staff gives the owners leeway that is often impossible on a traditional family farm. "It's still a 24-hour business. You just can't like this business, you have to love it," Hatch said.

Growth in Idaho's dairy industry reaches far beyond the corrals and milking parlors. Ralph May, who earned a UI degree in ag mechanization, grows mostly corn and alfalfa to feed dairy cows. He has formed a close partnership with Greg and Janey Ledbetter, who operate the C Bar M Dairy just across the road. The dairy provides a ready market for May's crops; the Ledbetter's cattle provide a steady source of nutrients to fertilize the crops. Their partnership is seen by many observers as a model for ensuring the state's booming dairy industry can stay within environmental safeguards for waste management.

Indeed, southern Idaho has become a mecca of sorts for the nation's dairy producers. A major reason is a model memorandum of understanding between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Idaho Department of Agriculture. In return for assuming responsibility for regulating the dairy industry's impacts to water quality, the state received authority for administering the federal Clean Water Act.

Bob Ohlensehlen, a UI extension educator in Twin Falls County, is also a nutrient management planner certified by the Idaho Department of Agriculture to help dairies manage their wastes. In his 21 years with the university,

Ohlensehlen first watched counties regulate dairies through zoning permits. During the past three or four years, he has worked with an average of 35 to 40 producers a year to help them comply with state and county plans. Some of his clients are new dairies, some are expanding, and some are upgrading to meet new waste handling regulations.

In their pact with federal regulators, Idaho agriculture officials promised that all Idaho dairies would be able to prevent their waste from contaminating ground or surface water. "Then, we make sure we're applying the waste to crops in a manner that is environmentally sound. It has to be done in a sustainable manner," Ohlensehlen said.

Dairy specialist Falk is involved with advising the owners of several new dairies on the design of their waste treatment lagoons. The size of a small lake, the lagoons must have the capacity to store months' worth of waste until it can be applied to fields. In most cases, the biggest dairies are also the newest. That generally makes them the best designed to handle waste.

Science clearly plays a major role in the regulation and modernization of the state's dairy industry. Family ties play just as strong a role for UI alumni Mike Quesnell and son Matt, the fourth generation of Quesnells in the dairy business. Mike Quesnell's grandfather started farming in 1912 and was selling milk and cream in 1920. Quesnell himself came home to the family dairy farm in 1970 as a 21-year-old UI senior after his father was injured.

This spring Mike welcomed Matt as a partner after he earned a bachelor's in animal science from UI and a master's in reproduction science from Washington State University.

The father-son team plans to expand their herd from 200 cows to 300 to capitalize on market conditions. They are unlikely to grow their business beyond that, however, because of tightening land-use regulations and the growth of neighboring Twin Falls.

"I always enjoyed growing up on the farm and I felt I had to get some education under my belt," said Matt. "I felt science was a good way to go because every day the vet recommends something, and I wanted to know something about it."

Educating himself, and the Spanish-speaking workers the Quesnells hire to help them, remains important. "One of the things I know the UI is doing that's important is offering education for Spanish-speaking milkers," said Matt.

Equipped with high school and college Spanish, Matt is still studying to become comfortably conversant. "It's important to be able to let the labor know why you're requesting to do something a certain way so they'll understand why it makes sense."

Without capable milkers, the modern dairy would be in trouble. Without milk, the cheese plants that transform fluid milk into a stable commodity that can be stored and shipped would go dry.

Just as there's no sign of drought on the supply side of the milk-cheese equation, the demand by cheese plants continues to grow. Gleaming stainless steel tanker trucks now haul condensed milk from Idaho to supply demand by cheese plants back east.

UI agricultural economist John Foltz sees no end in sight. "The reason we're in the cheese business is because we're far from major population centers so it's too expensive to ship fluid milk. We're in the dairy business because we're far from major population centers so land prices are inexpensive and commodities are readily available. I think we're going to continue to grow but not as rapidly as we have."

UI agricultural economist C. Wilson Gray agrees. "Milk prices are good, feed prices are good, the climate is good; there's expansion here and immigration from other areas."

"Idaho seems to have a good relationship between industry and regulators, and that doesn't mean regulators aren't doing a good job, but there's not the animosity that there is in some states. I think that's a positive that is attracting people to relocate," Gray said.

The infrastructure of feed producers, veterinarians, and equipment suppliers has grown with the industry. When he first moved up from California in 1983, in one of the early waves of the dairy migration, Bill Stouder found a network of support for the industry that seemed rudimentary compared to the close-packed efficiency he'd seen in Chino. "I'd call somebody and couldn't believe they couldn't be there for a day, or a week, because they'd gone elk hunting."

When he did decide to enter the dairy business, he chose the relatively simple path of focusing only on a dairy operation and leaving the farming to others. "I just tell people I don't know how to farm and I don't want to," Stouder said.

That's fine with feed producers like Ralph May. His partnership with the Ledbetter's dairy across the road includes cooperative projects to lay lines to carry dairy waste water to his center pivots. May injects about 10 percent effluent from the C Bar M's elaborate lagoon system into the water line supplying the center pivot. He then closely monitors the corn growing beneath it, relying on weekly tissue samples to track nitrogen and phosphorus needs and twice-monthly samples for trace mineral analysis. The result is the most productive corn crops he's ever grown.

May also uses dairy effluent on his alfalfa and tracks its progress just as carefully. His efforts led to an extraordinary six cuttings off one field last year and an expectation of five cuttings a year. Most important, he has met his goal of producing dairy quality hay, which can command a premium of as much as $40 a ton. That's why May, like others supplying dairy producers, hopes this gusher keeps its momentum.

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