Off-farm Income

If you are reading this you probably already know that our farm is in the Treasure Valley of Idaho, very near the capital city of Boise.  Our area is one of the areas in the United States that is experiencing rapid growth due to mass exodus from California and states with similar political climates and circumstances.  I believe that what I am seeing locally gives me a unique insight into how things are changing nationally, particularly from the standpoint of buying farm ground and making a living in rural areas.  The following is my insight on this. I first came to the Boise, Idaho area in 1994 when I got an internship selling Ag chemicals for Zeneca Ag Products.  The Treasure Valley of Idaho was booming back then and I can still remember my boss telling me that the rise in housing prices was unsustainable because we didn’t have the jobs here to support those prices.  He believed that a lot of the homes that were being purchased were being bought by people who had come for construction jobs.  And, he belie