Eddie: 2022 Will Be A Challenging Year For Hay Growers

The year ahead looks to be a challenging one for Washington hay growers. Andrew Eddie, president of the Washington state Hay Growers Association, said the price of shipping containers remains at an all-time high. Making exporting hay more challenging.

“So, their turnaround time for those containers instead of putting forage products on them and shipping them overseas and tying them up for say a month or 45 days, they can turn it around and ship it back and more imports will come in.  So, that will be tough, it’s going to be something to overcome, hopefully there is a silver lining sometime, but if the costs don’t come down it’s really not too feasible.  So, I think 2022 is going to be domestic market very heavily”

Eddie added it’s not only going to be challenging to ship hay overseas, but growing this year’s crop will be expensive.

"Input costs have increased, probably three times what they were, at least.  For the fertilizer section chemicals are up 20%, 25%, 30% depending on what it is, I mean it’s going to be pretty tight and producing the same amount with the same amount of inputs is going to be…the profit are going to be a little less and just mind your P’s and Q’s and pay attention to your budget is going to be the biggest thing to do.”

Eddie said it will be even more important this year for growers to carefully watch the business side of their farm.

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