As farmers across the Midwest roll into harvest, there’s another number they’re watching closely…and it’s not the price of corn or soybeans. It’s the price of diesel fuel.
“We’ve done a little bit of harvest now and watching some of the telematics on one of the combines, it was running about 17 gallons an hour just on the combine. That’s roughly 100 bucks an hour just to run the combine. And then we have obviously trucks and tractors of the grain carts. So it’s going to be pretty expensive.” According to Tri-county farmer, Ryan Rippy.
He says diesel prices have climbed so sharply, so quickly that it just adds another significant expense at a time when farmers are already dealing with tight margins. And harvest is one of the most fuel-intensive times of the year, with combines, tractors, grain trucks and grain dryers all contributing to the fuel bill.
He said, “We had talked about locking in some fuel and then by the time we got around to do it, the field prices already had already risen. So we’ve kind of just been in a wait and see pattern right now, but we’re looking pretty hard at maybe locking in some, some longer term fuel.”
For farmers, higher diesel prices can quickly add thousands of dollars to the cost of getting a crop out of the field and into storage or to market. That could mean some producers take a closer look at every trip across the field, how they move grain, and when they run equipment.
But Rippy says that’s not the only thing that is affected. “As we go forward and the longer the fuel prices are higher, I think it will affect fertilizer, it will affect chemicals, it will affect parts. It will start to affect everything down the line at some point the longer the prices are elevated.
And with harvest upon us, the concern is that higher fuel costs could eat into already-thin profit margins.
