New to the job, familiar with the field

NEZPERCE — Lewis County’s new University of Idaho extension educator has deep roots in the agricultural and logging industry she is now representing.

Audra Cochran, 32, was born and raised in Clearwater County in a ranching and logging family. She recently took the helm vacated by the retirement of longtime extension educator Ken Hart.

“So I grew up very intimately involved with all things agriculture,” Cochran said. “So that’s what fueled my passion."

As the extension educator for Lewis County, Cochran will assist and advise growers, landowners and others about agronomy, timber production, forest management and other associated fields. It’s a job she’s eager to sink her teeth into.

“It’s a diverse county,” Cochran said. “It’s not a huge county — we only have about 3,800 people from corner to corner. But, regionally, we have Kamiah, Craigmont, Nezperce and Winchester and those all require a different set of needs. They have different crops and agriculture happening in them and I’m just trying to figure out how to meet the needs of all those different communities.”

Besides coming from an agriculture/logging family, Cochran was a 12-year 4-H member in Clearwater County before moving on to the University of Idaho, where she obtained a bachelor’s degree in animal and veterinary sciences.

Following graduation, she spent some time working with the UI extension office and “fell in love” with it. After pursuing a master’s degree in forestry and natural resources, Cochran found the opening in Lewis County and went for it.

Although she has a passion for agriculture, she’s not naive about the challenges farmers and ranchers face — especially now with skyrocketing costs and a long, wet spring.

“Planting has been delayed this year because of weather, and we have input costs that are through the roof,” she said. “That’s going to directly impact our farmers and ranchers because it’s affecting their bottom line. It makes it pretty hard to pencil out a crop based on (current) prices.”

Because of the weather, Cochran said it’s likely some farmers will not have been able to plant spring crops and may be looking at other ways to make money.

“Maybe we’ll find that they do alternative cropping. I don’t know what that looks like — maybe it will be cover crops; maybe it will be more grazing; maybe it will be hay crops.

“I don’t know what that totally looks like. But I do know that farmers are some of the most resilient individuals and they usually find a way to keep their ground in rotation and also keep some revenue coming toward them back into their families. So I think they'll figure it out.”

Cochran has a personal stake in the vicissitudes of agriculture. She and her husband, Casey, and their son, Owen, also operate a cow-calf and logging business in partnership with her parents in Clearwater County, where they live.

“It’s kind of fun to work multi-generational with my folks,” she said.

For now, she’s focusing on getting a feel for her new job and making acquaintances with the people in the county. One of her first tasks is assembling an advisory committee to define some of the county’s priorities — what works and what doesn’t. Cochran said she hopes to build on Hart’s legacy and also to come up with some new projects of her own.

One of her plans includes expanding firewise programs into the area. Besides her logging background, she also serves on the Idaho firewise board.

“We’ve seen a lot of fires within our region in the most recent years,” she said. “We’ve got 77,000 acres of private timber in Lewis County and (her plans would focus on) keeping forests healthy with firewise and fire mitigation risks.”

She also hopes to be able to expand a variety of extension programs into the more remote areas of the county where broadband internet service may be spotty or nonexistent.

“I think we have a really great hidden gem within Winchester State Park and we can do some really good collaborative stuff with them,” Cochran said.

“So I have a lot of ideas. It’s all kind of circling and I’m trying to figure out exactly what I want to lay down. But it really comes down to what our people need, what the county needs and what kind of direction they want the program to look like.”

Hedberg may be contacted at khedberg@lmtribune.com.