Optimum Size and Location for a Northern Utah Feed Mill

Over the years, Utah has enjoyed the advantage of having natural agricultural resources that favor the production of livestock. Sheep and beef cattle do well on the desert and high mountain ranges that cover much of the state, Dairy cattle and wintering beef cattle use the alfalfa and native hay along with some corn silage that is grown in the irrigated valleys. Feed grains are grown in rotation with forage crops on irrigated land and also on dry land. Before 1950, the quantities of feed grains produced had been sufficient to meet the needs of dairy, range livestock and poultry. However, with the realization that Utah had a natural market position in relation to the coast markets, there developed an extensive poultry and livestock fattening business. Since that time Utah has been in the position of a feed grain deficit state. This has tended to raise the cost of feed grain by $10 to $12 per ton due to the transportation factor. Also, Utah\u27s poultry industry relied partially upon feed wheat from northern Utah and southern Idaho, but with acreage allotments and price controls, the price of wheat increased to the point where it was no longer used as a poultry feed. As a consequence, poultry and egg producers also had to turn to importing more of their feed grains, which put them into a higher feed cost position along with the livestock feeder. In the past year, however, the price of feed wheat declined to the point where wheat was used extensively in livestock feed stuffs for the first time in years