Two stalwarts of Eastern Washingtons agricultural industry, wheat and cattle, likely will continue to head in different directions in 2006, ag experts say.


The Inland Northwest wheat industry, hurt by high fuel and fertilizer costs as well as low commodity prices, needs a huge upswing in international demand to reach any semblance of profitability, while beef producers, though they are also seeing higher costs, are enjoying record prices, the experts say.


The price of diesel is near an all-time high, fertilizer costs are the highest they have been in history, and commodity prices are near an all-time low, says Lynn Pittman, area manager for San Francisco-based Wilbur-Ellis Co., which sells and applies fertilizers, herbicides, and seeds.


Tom Mick, CEO of the Washington State Wheat Commission, says growers of soft-white wheat, the predominant wheat crop in the Inland Northwest, face stiff worldwide competition from Australia, China, and producers from the Black Sea area.


The opportunity to export Washington wheat to earthquake-ravaged Pakistan and possibly to Egypt could provide markets to watch and also boost demand for a crop for which prices today are below the cost of production, Mick says.


Michael Stolp, a spokesman for Spokane-based ag lender Northwest Farm Credit Services, says the biggest three factors affecting farm operations are weather, commodity prices, and planting costs, such as fuel and fertilizerand both commodity prices and planting costs have been adverse.


Stolp, whose family grows wheat near Sprague, says producers will have to become more efficient. There is hope for the future in 2006, he says. But I dont mean it will be easy.


Don Young, extension beef specialist for Washington State Universitys College of Agriculture, says things could get even better for cattle producers because Japan agreed last week to ease its ban on U.S. beef imports, and South Korea and other countries could follow suit. Those markets were closed about two years ago when mad cow disease was detected in a cow in Washington that had come from Canada.


The outlet for legumes, meanwhile, is less encouraging.


Lentil and pea prices are low and probably going to stay there, says Gary Heaton, pulse division manager for Cooperative Agricultural Producers, of Rosalia. He says lentil prices are now 10 cents a pound, about half what they were 18 months ago. He says pea prices are now 8 cents to 10 cents a pound, also half of what they were two years ago.


Nonetheless, he estimates that about the same acreage of Eastern Washington cropland will be planted in lentils next year as this year. He says the number of acres planted in peas in 2006 likely will be down from the number of acres planted this year.


Separately, Ray Folwell, acting dean at WSUs College of Agriculture, in Pullman, says Washington had a record wine-grape harvest in 2005, but growers arent as optimistic about next years crop. Folwell says many plants were not as strong after last years harvest, and the current cold spell could hurt the grape crop as well.