Expensive energy drives up cost of doing business

摘要

HIGH-TECH farming is high-stakes farming. Matthew Erickson, an American Farm Bureau Federation economist, recently put a pencil to energy prices. Suppose your tractor contains a 270-gallon diesel fuel tank. At current farm diesel prices around $3.76 per gallon, that's $1,015 to fill up the tractor. What's really scary is, that's 40% more than it cost to fill the tractor in 2010, and 73% more than in 2009, when you could fill it for $588. If oil prices continue to increase, expect diesel prices to increase as well, the economist says.