The Washington State Potato Commission board is currently seeking applications for one at-large Commissioner position. Applicants can be either growers or others that are involved in the potato industry and are voted in by the nine elected Commissioners. Voting will take place at the annual meeting September 6. Interested applicants should submit a letter of intent by August 31 to the Commission Office in Moses Lake.

The drought has everyone wondering what will next year bring. The average corn price for 2013 is expected to be thirty-one percent higher than this year. The agriculture industry as a whole will be looking at extreme changes in production and export numbers across the board. Even those producers not affected personally by drought will still feel the affects. USDA Chief Economist Joe Glauber talks about the different variables involved in analyzing the drought’s impact on agriculture as a whole.

GLAUBER: We’ll have to look at the revenues and obviously we’ve seen enormous price increases. We know that there will be some crop insurance receipts that should help. I think on the crop side - I think that side of the ledger should look okay. Clearly there are going to be huge increases there on the feed cost side that are likely to be not just over this year obviously, but also pretty much through most of next year.

In response to rising feed costs many livestock producers will liquidate herds. The cost of finishing animals is on the rise. That cost in turn is passed on to the consumer. Beef prices are expected to jump 4-5 percent in 2013, while dairy, poultry and egg prices will also raise between 2.5-4.5 percent.

I’m Lacy Gray and that’s Washington Ag Today on the Northwest Ag Information Network.