Idaho prepares for egg industry growth

The chairman of the Idaho senate’s agriculture committee is planning to introduce legislation to help the state prepare for a possible influx of California poultry producers, who say that California’s plans to ban battery cages for hens by 2015 could raise their costs by 20%, the Associated Press reports.
Senator Tim Corder supports the use of cages but wants to revise regulations regarding the siting of poultry farms. He says he wants to avoid the pollution problems that accompanied the rapid growth of Idaho’s dairy industry over the past two decades.
"The time when agriculture can sweep in and do whatever it wants and nobody will say anything about it until it's too late, that time is past," Corder told the Associated Press. "If we're going to do this, let's do it right from the start."
Pam Juker, an Idaho Department of Agriculture chief of staff, said that, in the dairy industry, "The laws and rules had to be developed alongside the industry growth. … With this [Corder's] proposed legislation, it will help to have the regulatory structure in place before a new industry settles in."
The new regulations are necessary whether or not California farmers move their operations, Corder said, because Idaho’s poultry industry is already growing. For example, genetics company Hy-Line North America opened a hatchery in southern Idaho in 2009, and government officials recently took steps to help a 4-million bird broiler plant locate there, the news agency reports.