TYLER DURDEN/ACTIVIST POST
Last week we noted how US farmer sentiment plummeted in May - as producers have become anxious about their farms' financial health.
According to the monthly survey by Purdue University/CME Group, The rapid rise in production costs and uncertainty regarding the direction of input prices have been important contributors to the drop in sentiment.
About 44 percent of farmers, according to the monthly survey, cited input costs as their biggest concern for the coming year, according to the Epoch Times.
In fact, 60% of farmers predict farm input prices to be at least 30% higher this year compared to 2021.
To that end, Ohio farmer Holly Weilnau took to TikTok two weeks ago in a now-viral video to explain how farmers are suffering under inflated input costs, which is going to send the price of food much higher than it is right now.
"There are things that we have to buy," she says, adding "There's something we have to buy that two years ago cost us $24, last year was about $46, this year it is costing us $96."
"Please understand, food prices are going to go up," she continues. "You wanna act like it's the farmers' fault--it is not the farmers' fault. We are barely making it to grow the stuff so you guys are able to get it in August, September, October."
"Guys, this is not going away. Stop sticking your head in the sand and thinking 'oh, it's going to be okay' -- it's not going to be okay."
In a Saturday video, Weilnau relayed a story about another farmer who was unable to lock in diesel pricing for this fall, and was told that it was because of uncertainty amid rapidly rising diesel costs.
"That alone, guys--to fill the tractors and the equipment needed to get the product out of the field--is going to be astronomically bad all the way around," she said, adding: "So understand, people are like, 'Oh, plan ahead'--we're trying. They're not letting us."
Oh - and at least as of this writing, you can see that Twitter considered Weilnau's videos "potentially sensitive content."
This is far from the first farmer to offer a dire warning. Three weeks ago John Boyd Jr., the President of the National Black Farmers Association, said "We are in a crisis right now as far as the food chain goes with the farmer in this country," adding "We're going to see a lot of empty shelves and a lot more high food prices."
In his forty-year career as a farmer, Boyd said he never imagined he would be "paying $5.63 for a gallon of diesel fuel, $900 a ton for fertilizer, and all-time high prices for soybean seeds." All of the prices he mentioned are at record highs, pressuring farmers' margins.
No comments:
Post a Comment