Farmers feel the squeeze of inflation

Inflation is growing on the farm.

American farmers are paying significantly higher prices for their weed-killing chemicals, crop seeds, fertilizer, equipment repairs and seasonal labor, eroding some of 2021’s windfall from rising crop prices. Higher farm costs could help push up grocery bills further in 2022, analysts say, following a year in which global food prices rose to decade highs.

“I just don’t see how I’m going to get paid this year,” said Brooks Barnes, a second-generation farmer in Wilson County, N.C.

Mr. Barnes said he spent more than he ever had to operate his farm last year. Higher commodity prices at the time covered most of those cost increases. Facing even higher prices now, he doesn’t expect that to be the case for 2022.

On his farm where he grows tobacco, corn, soybeans, wheat and sweet potatoes, Mr. Barnes in the spring of 2021 said he paid $16 a gallon for Bayer AG’s Roundup, the world’s most commonly used weedkiller, for his crops. By September he bought it for about $40 a gallon and in February, his Nutrien Ltd. retailer told him it was $60 a gallon, he said. One of the fertilizers he buys, 24s, cost him $500 a ton from $175 last spring, he said. Float bed plastic, which holds water for his tobacco plant trays to float on in his greenhouses, cost him $82 a roll, compared with $70 a year ago.

“I’ve always been excited to start a new crop but I’m not excited at all for this one,” said Mr. Barnes, who has been farming full-time since 2004.

Supply-chain constraints and staffing problems are leading to higher prices for products and supplies across a variety of industries, especially food. U.S. inflation hit its fastest pace in nearly four decades last year. Food prices surged 7% in January, the sharpest rise since 1981, the Labor Department on Thursday said, as meat and egg prices continued to climb at double-digit rates.– READ MORE