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Abstract
The impact of Idaho’s wine and grape industry was assessed as an agribusiness and
as a tourist industry. Idaho’s grape and wine industry is in its infancy, with wine
sales of $15 million from 15 wineries and growers cultivating about 1,000 acres,
primarily in southwestern Idaho’s Canyon County. Synthesized output multipliers
for wine tourism were virtually identical to the agribusiness output multipliers
(1.86 and 2.10 for Canyon County and the state of Idaho, respectively). The wine
and grape industry’s agribusiness impact is $15 million in sales and 120 jobs in
Idaho, and $23 million and 140 jobs for Canyon County. In contrast, tourism
expenditures stimulate other businesses in addition to the agribusiness linkages of
grape and wine production. Thus, only about three-fourths of the current wine production
would be required to be sold to out-of-region tourists to equal the impact
of the wine and grape industry as an agribusiness industry.