Idaho Potato Farmer Breaks Down The Idaho Water Shutoff 💦

Idaho Potato Farmer Breaks Down The Idaho Water Shutoff

“The State of Idaho and the Idaho Department of Water Resources is issued this curtailment of 500,000 acres. To help put that in perspective, that's basically 781 square miles of farm ground being taken out of production”

“This is the largest curtailment in the history of the United States as far as farm ground. And, of course, the worst problem is this is happening during a very plentiful water year.

The reservoirs are completely full. And when I mean full, they're dang, they're breaking. The river's running as high as they possibly can just trying to keep those dams from breaking.

Personally going to look at a $3,000,000 loss if this curtailment continues. And this will end my 135 year family farm legacy, of growing potatoes in Idaho.

And I'm one of the smaller farms, but I, as a potato grower, I grow 23,000,000 large orders of McDonald's French fries. And of the grain side of my operation, I grow 16,000,000 loaves of bread.

And with today's issues of farm ground being taken over and farm security, that's a significant amount. And I amount to less than 1% of really what this curtailment is about.

The governor has the ability in the constitution to end this curtailment. That’s part of his role and part of his job.

And so, yes, if the governor wanted to, we can end this curtailment today.

The leadership is just gonna let the bottom line dry up.

Yes. That's exactly what they are intending to do.”