Deseret Morning News: Ranchers, farmers are gored by high fuel costs

      Not long ago, Kent Bushman told an Idaho lawmaker that if fuel prices continued their upward spike, he'd have to drive his cattle to their southeast Idaho summer grazing home, old-school style.
      "I told him if prices keep going up, I'll have to drive them up there, because I can't afford to truck them. One hundred and fifty miles," Bushman said.
      He was joking. Sort of.
      Like other farmers and ranchers across the country, Bushman has watched with dismay as fuel prices have crept higher, looming larger and larger over his 400-acre cattle operation in Lehi. In the past two years, he's seen the cost to transport his cattle jump from $1.80 per mile to more than $3 per mile — an increase he can't pass on to his buyers. If prices remain high, and cattle prices sag, Bushman said he'll have to sell off his livestock to make it through.
      The national discussion about energy prices has left farmers and ranchers feeling a bit forgotten, said Arthur Douglas, president of the Utah Farmers Union. At a joint press conference Thursday with newly elected National Farmers Union President Tom Buis, Douglas set out to fix that.
      Buis, visiting Utah as part of a tour of NFU states, called the current fuel price situation "the greatest, most immediate challenge we face." The NFU represents 250,000 farmers and ranchers across the United States. The Utah Farmers Union has 2,700 members.
      "There is no doubt that the rising input costs over the last year and a half as a result of fuel price hikes has been the greatest single increase in input costs in modern history for farmers and ranchers," Buis said.
      The price increases haven't affected just the cost of fuel. They're in everything made from fuel — from fertilizers to baling wire and plastic pipe used for irrigation — and in the energy to dry, process and store products. And they're increases that can't be passed on.
      "The costs are tremendous," Buis said. "Unfortunately, we're in an industry that's a price taker, not a price maker. So, when we go to sell our products, we can't add on a fuel surcharge. A lot of people in business today are passing on the increased costs of fuel, tacking it on as a delivery charge. We have no one to pass it on to. Literally, the buck stops with us."
      It stops, yes. But farmers have to wait months before they can get at it, said Douglas, a farmer in Box Elder County.
      "Yesterday, working the land like many farmers and ranchers across this state, I burned about 100 gallons of diesel fuel, preparing the land to get ready to plant the crop," Douglas said. "That's just one day. When we take into account that it'll be about eight months before that crop is harvested, and another three to four months before it goes to market, I don't know of another industry that can wait to see any type of return on their investment. It's a big, big concern."
      At the same time, some of the industry's marquee crops are seeing their prices backing up: wheat, dairy, corn. In February, the U.S. Department of Agriculture projected that net farm income will drop $22 billion this year because of rising input costs — a quarter of all net farm income, in one year.
      Buis outlined strategies for the short- and long-term. In the short term, Buis said he wants NFU states to get behind an emergency supplemental funding bill now in the Senate — which includes $4 billion for farm/ranch losses due to weather-related disasters and economic assistance to help some farmers and ranchers cope with rising input costs. President Bush threatened to veto the bill unless lawmakers trimmed it back.
      "That's wrong," Buis said. "I don't know if he travels the same circles that I do, but if you go down and talk to people in rural America that need this assistance, we're sort of in a crisis moment."
      The farm subsidies survived a round of cuts on Wednesday.
      In the long term, Buis and Douglas said farmers will be pushing for greater emphasis on renewable fuels, such as ethanol, biodiesel and wind-powered electricity generation.
      "Because of the rising prices in oil, ethanol is now price competitive," Buis said. "You can produce ethanol, or E-85, cheaper than you can (produce) gasoline. So there's a bright future in ethanol production in this country, and the beauty of it is that it's grown right here in America."
      And if all else fails? Bushman said, "They can drill for oil on my ranch. With the cost of everything going up, we're not making any money, anyway."
      Again, joking. Sort of.