The last several years have put a hurting on a producer’s bottom line. Just a year ago, diesel prices were over $5.00 a gallon. Now, they’re hovering around $4.20 a gallon.
That’s still a lot of money, but as Cameron Mulrony with the Idaho Cattlemen’s Association notes, the stability is a welcomed sign.
“It seemed to stabilize a little bit, you know we’re not seeing that drastic incline, or increase every month, every week. Our fuel prices have dropped a little bit and kind of stabilized we’re not seeing as big a fluctuation which is good. Don’t get me wrong, I think we’d all like to see $2 diesel again. A drastic change in that direction wouldn’t hurt anybody’s feelings,” Mulrony said.
Fertilizer prices the last several weeks have been cheaper month-over-month but still remain much higher than this time last year. Just about everything on a farmer’s operation costs more these days.
“You know between 2021-2022 we saw a drastic increase in a lot of places of our operations or input costs, so stabilization at least allows us to form a budget and make a plan and hopefully they’ll stay kind of stable within the area that we’re at. And if we see anything hopefully it’s a little decrease in those input costs in order to keep our operations whole,” Mulrony said.
While diesel prices have been stable in recent months, they are still the highest they’ve been since mid-2008.
