MANTUA, Ohio — Farmers are often impacted by two Ws, weather and Washington, but this year the impacts of a third, war, are being felt in the price of fuel.
"This tractor behind me burns 500 gallons of fuel a day," said Portage County Farmer Chuck Sayre of just one of his farm's many tractors. "Right now, our spread is $3 a gallon more than what it was back in the spring. $1,500 a day that this tractor costs us now more to run to bring the harvest in."
Across the entire farm, he said they're looking at spending an additional $100,000 in fuel costs over last year. "And that's just one expense; everything we do fertilizer, chemicals, everything we do is tied to the petroleum market, so as the petroleum market moves up, all of those inputs move up."
So does he think his family farm will make a profit on his crops this year? "No, absolutely not, and the past three years we haven't," he said.
"The U.S. farmer right now, especially in the Midwest where agriculture is common, is just being crushed. I mean our inputs, we're just absolutely being crushed."
He said the prices the crops are demanding are starting to move up, "but they're not moving up nearly as fast as what our input costs are moving up. So when the year ends, and we see how much we spent on the crop, to plant the crop and to grow the crop and to bring it in, then we got to figure out how much we're going to have to sell it for and then see when we can sell. That makes some pretty interesting talks with your banker. They aren't really happy right now."
Consumers should be aware, he said, that those increased input costs will be reflected on the price for food down the road.
"What we sell for is going to have to go up, or there's just no way these small family farms are going to stay in business," he said.
