Ridiculous exaggeration. There is no possibility that this can be true. Fuel is not three times more expensive than three years ago, and tractors are not three times more expensive. Perhaps this is true of seed or fertilizer but that cannot explain such a staggering increase in the cost of production.
I think the farmers are poor-mouthing because they don't want the public to yank the Federal farm-support teat away from them now that crop prices are near all-time highs.
-ccm
Fertilizer and other chemical costs HAVE doubled and tripled. Fuel prices have gone up about 30%, seed prices are through the roof (have nearly doubled).
I live right here in farming country, and the majority of our church members are farmers.
I suppose you’re saying this from the perspective of being a farmer and looking at your books, right?
No? Golly, why doesn’t that surprise me?
OK, here’s some facts:
In 2001, I paid less than $1.00/gal for dyed fuel. Actually, now that I think about it, I paid about $0.87/gal.
In 2003, it was about $1.80+/gal, depending on when during the year I was buying it.
This spring, dyed diesel is about $3.40/gal last I checked. And you can’t lock in a price for more than a few days.
Fertilizer: In 2001, I paid $245/ton for 11-52-0. This spring, the quoted price was $850/ton. That’s if you can get the fertilizer. China is buying fertilizers by the boatload as fast as they can.
Generic glyphosate had gotten down to about $12/gal for a 4lb product two years ago. Now it is about double that - for no reason that one can find.
On top of these prices, for many farmers the price of clear diesel is crushing their profit margins. If you want to haul product to markets, the cost of trucking is going up very rapidly for two reasons - first, the obvious cost of fuel. Second, because there are more and more truckers simply parking their trucks. They can’t raise their prices fast enough, so there are fewer truckers out there to haul inputs and outputs, so the fewer that are left are passing on their increased costs rapidly. It used to be that the haul on our dairy hay into California was $40/ton. Now it is $85/ton. The price that the dairymen will pay isn’t going up that quickly, so if dairyman will pay only $200/ton for the hay, and the trucker’s per-ton shipping charge has gone up from $70 to $85/ton, guess who is eating that increase? The hay farmer.
Same deal with grain farmers. Their shipping costs are reflected in the basis on grain contracts.
And this doesn’t deal with the increases in lube oil (I used to get a 55gal drum of 15W40 engine oil for $245 - now it is $650 and going up every week), lubes, greases, etc. Steel costs have gone up, so steel tillage parts have about doubled in cost in the last 5 years. Parts that use specialty steels like bearings have gone up substantially in the last five years.
Tires: If you can get them, they’ve more than doubled since 2003. I used to buy a 18.4R38 tire for $550 or so. Now that tire costs $1400+, IF you can get it. Farmers are down to only two tire companies that make ag tires in most sizes. The surge in the mining industry has made tire manufactures chase the big industrial tire market. Why screw around with a farmer complaining about paying $1400+ for a tire, when you can charge a mining company $80,000 for a tire?
Last time I had to order a tire, I waited a month for it to arrive.
Farmers have been seeing inflation for a lot longer than you consumers have. Farmers first started seeing input costs go up seriously in 2004.