Wheat prices have Washington towns feeling flush

Friday, August 17, 2007 10:46 AM PDT

Cody Johnston, a ‘wheat rat’ for Davenport Union Warehouse Co., unloads a truck of club wheat into a silo on Aug. 2, in Davenport, Wash. High wheat prices mean the 300-member farmers’ cooperative will be a $25 million business in Davenport, a town of 1,800 people, 30 miles west of Spokane, Wash.

DAVENPORT, Wash. (AP) — In Washington’s wheat country, when farmers do well, everyone does well.

So, with wheat selling at higher prices than it has in decades, there’s an upbeat atmosphere on Main Street all across the state’s wheat-growing region.

Resilient small towns that weathered tough years of a down-and-out farm economy are poised to end 2007 on a high note.

The last time the price of soft white wheat was this high was in the aftermath of wheat deals with the Soviet Union in the early 1970s, when the price of Northwest wheat peaked at $6.35 a bushel in February 1974. Prices being paid in Portland, Ore., on Wednesday were around $6.92 a bushel.

“Though it’s not anywhere near the bonanza it was in the 1970s, farmers should be healing up this year,” Odessa accountant Todd King said. “Things are finally going in the right direction. For small towns, too.”

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The state’s wheat harvest last year was valued at $456.3 million, placing the cereal grain fifth among more than 200 crops grown here. The harvest could easily exceed that this year.

That’s good news for “wheat rats” Taylor Warwick and Cody Johnston.

The two 20-somethings empty grain trucks as “dump bay hosts” at the Davenport Union Warehouse Co. Dust from wheat chaff sticks to their skin and hair in the August heat, but it’s good money for work that lasts only as long as the harvest.

Within weeks, this year’s banner harvest across Lincoln County will be completed.

The strong prices mean the 300-member farmer’s cooperative will be a $25 million business in Davenport, a town of 1,800 people about 30 miles west of Spokane.

“In the farming communities, this sort of price affects everyone,” warehouse manager Ed Stoner said. “When farmers are doing well, everyone is doing well.”

Davenport exists on a diet of wheat and tourism. It is a gateway for boat and camping traffic headed to the Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area behind Grand Coulee Dam.

It is also far enough away from Spokane to be self-sustaining. Main Street is populated with banks, car dealerships, hardware stores and other shops and services.

Wheat is grown on 2.2 million acres in Eastern Washington, and the annual harvest helps fill the coffers of small communities and school districts.

“It can only mean good things,” said Colin Guhlke, who farms with his family and sells cars at Elliott Motors. “We’re definitely hoping that some folks will be able to buy this fall.”

John Hendrickson, owner of Hendrickson’s Finishing Touch flooring shop, said he anticipates that some of the money being reaped from the grain fields surrounding the town will mean more business.

“I think we’ll benefit,” he said. “People around here like to keep their money local.”

As the seat of the second-largest wheat producing county in the United States, behind Whitman County south of Spokane, Davenport needs wheat dollars to pay for services ranging from schools to city government to health care.

This year the tax dollars from wheat sales and property should be substantial.

“I’ve been here 28 years and I’ve never seen prices that give the farmer more than $6 a bushel,” warehouse manager Stoner said. The only downside is that this crop will be about average. July heat set back spring crops that appeared headed toward bumper proportions.

“That’s about the only disappointment around here,” Stoner said.