Higher Food Prices Aren’t Making Farmers Richer
Costs of fuel and fertilizer are soaring faster than grain markets, but government could ease the pain for growers and consumers by encouraging more agricultural innovation.
Finding a way.
Photographer: Emily Elconin/BloombergFor American consumers wondering who's profiting from the run-up in food prices, it’s instructive to spend a few hours at Rob Tate’s Minnesota farm. Because he wants everyone to know that it sure isn’t him.
Tate is paying twice as much as he used to for the diesel that powers his equipment. And the upsurge in fertilizer cost, which accounts for roughly 25% to 30% of his expenses in an average year, is even more extreme: he's paying as much as 242% more this year than last for key nutrients. “That's a lot to take,” he said last week when I visited his cornfields about an hour south of Minneapolis.