Farmers struggle with rising fuel prices

By Anastasia Harbuck

Published: June 5, 2008

Fuel costs have affected Americans right down to what they buy in the grocery store.
They have also affected the people who help put that food in the grocery store - the farmers. The rising cost of diesel fuel has caused many farmers to change what they grow and how they grow it.
As drivers in Barbour and Quitman County mutter under their breath as they buy gasoline to fuel their vehicles, local farmers are facing many more fuel-related problems. From the high price of diesel to fuel farm machinery, to the rising price of fertilizer containing petroleum to even fueling vehicles to get farm hands to and from work, local farmers are feeling the brunt of high fuel prices.
And as Quitman County Extension Coordinator Carl Childree says, “The dry weather doesn’t help.”
“It’s having a big impact,” Childree adds concerning fuel prices. “From equipment to the price of fertilizer.”
Farmer Kendall Cooper tends land in Barbour, Henry and Bullock County. He says between the drought and steep fuel prices, farmers are being forced to change their ways. His machinery can use anywhere from 75-100 gallons of fuel a week and, with the cheapest diesel at $3.98 a gallon, Cooper has to make every drop count.
Cooper hasn’t cut hay this season because he can’t spare the fuel and he’s taken to planting more low maintenance crops like soybeans.
“Soybeans don’t take as many trips across the field,” he says.
Charlie Mason, Barbour County Extension coordinator, says that many local farmers are turning to crops like soybeans to counter high fuel prices and not just because it takes less diesel for machinery to tend the crops. Soybeans produce their own source of nitrogen and require less fertilizer than plants like corn. Mason says the price of fertilizer has skyrocketed. Petroleum is a key ingredient in many fertilizers farmers use and the price of petroleum is rising whether it’s in diesel fuel or fertilizer. Mason says farmers can pay anywhere from $700 - 1,000 a ton for fertilizers.
“It’s really getting into their pocketbooks,” says Mason.
Then there are all the miscellaneous costs to running a farm, most of which involve gasoline or diesel fuel. Cooper says even driving trucks through cow pastures to monitor the livestock is costing farmers dearly. Then there is the cost of fuel to transport farm workers to and from the fields and don’t forget the middle men who help get livestock and produce from the farm to the supermarket aisle.
And though the price of staples like cotton, peanuts and corn are up, farmers can hardly enjoy it because of shelling out cash to buy fuel.
“It’s taken a big hunk out of our profits,” says Cooper. “Everything we do costs more.”
But Childree says the effects of steep fuel prices on farmers aren’t all negative. Some farmers are starting to grow more corn for ethanol, which can be turned into fuel. Childree also describes the USDA Peanut Research Lab in Dawson, Ga. which is researching alternate fuel sources made from peanuts.
“It is an effective way to make fuel,” said Childree.
He goes on to say how farmers might someday fuel their machinery through plants grown in their own fields or maybe combine petroleum fuels with biodiesel fuels made from plants.
But that day seems a long time coming. And as farmers struggle to plant, grow and harvest, shoppers are sure to feel it when they walk through the grocery store.