Soaring fuel costs have local farmers and ranchers worried that
the price of gas will eat into their profits this season, affecting
everything from transportation to fertilizer.
Hollister – Soaring fuel costs have local farmers and ranchers worried that the price of gas will eat into their profits this season, affecting everything from transportation to fertilizer.
Rising fuel prices have increased expenses for farmers and ranchers, but the market price of the food and livestock they produce has stayed about the same.
“When you’re ranching and farming, you have to take what the buyer offers,” local rancher John Hodges said.
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, gasoline and diesel fuel prices have reached near-record highs across the country. Drivers across the country paid an average of about $3.20 a gallon for unleaded regular on Monday, up $1.35 from a year ago, and 75 cents more than they did before the hurricane, according to Randy Bly, director of community relations for AAA Auto Club South.
And those high fuel prices have changed the way the San Benito Cattle Company is operating this year, President Mitt French said Monday.
“In our case (the impact is) significant,” French said. “We won’t plant as much grass seed this year – we’ll cut back and try to operate more efficiently.”
Planting grass seed can be expensive because it requires the use of farm machinery such as tractors and tillers, which in turn require gasoline or diesel fuel. In addition to increased fuel expense for operating machinery, ranchers also have to pay higher transportation costs in order to get their livestock to the market, French said.
“That’s the real killer, it hits (ranchers) the most,” he said. “With higher fuel costs, a lot of trucking companies won’t come out here to California. And when we do find trucks, they raise the rates.”
This year, prices were already significantly higher for ranchers compared to last year, even before Hurricane Katrina, French said. Increased fuel prices may hurt profits this year, but French is far more concerned about the missing and displaced residents of the Gulf Coast than he is about fuel prices.
“We’re experiencing nothing compared to the folks in the Gulf Coast,” he said. “Helping them out is the most important thing right now.”
Like French, local vegetable farmer Joe Tonascia has also been focused on making farm operations more efficient. And higher crude oil prices don’t just affect the price of gasoline and diesel fuel.
“It also drives up all of my other costs,” Tonascia said. “The price of fertilizer has gone through the roof.”
Tonascia predicts that next year the cost of producing vegetables may increase by $100 to $200 per acre, which could substantially decrease profits, he said. Although Tonascia has looked at purchasing new farm equipment, decreasing profits have made that option unrealistic.
“You have to make more money to afford newer, more fuel-efficient equipment,” he said. “It’s a catch-22.”
In addition to increased expenses, high fuel prices have also sparked an increase of rural crime statewide. The California Farm Bureau Federation reported that fuel thefts had increased fourfold statewide from 2003 to 2004, in a press release.
The San Benito County Sheriff’s Department has had at least one report of fuel theft in the last month, but Undersheriff Pat Turturici said the department has not seen an increase this year compared to last year so far.
Brett Rowland covers education for the Free Lance. He can be reached at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or [email protected].
