MARANA, Ariz. (KGUN) — Higher fuel prices are reaching off the road and into our farmland. Farmers usually buy fuel by the truckload and they are worried about what their next load of fuel will cost them.
At Burruel & Burruel Farms, a baling vehicle was burning plenty of fuel to get alfalfa ready for market.
Arnold Burruel says with four thousand acres in Marana and Eloy, he could be running fifteen tractors at once.
“That's about 75,000 gallons worth of diesel, red diesel a year. Let alone my regular trucks are burning clear diesel. And of course, we have some gasoline trucks for the everyday jobs, irrigating things of that nature.”
Red diesel costs less than regular diesel because it’s for off-road only. That makes it exempt from road taxes.
But it still cost Burruel $2.36 a gallon before prices shot up.
He says he has no way to know yet what it will cost when he buys more fuel next week—even though that fuel was probably in a distributor’s tanks before the Iran war disrupted world oil supplies. He says the effect of the war stacks on top of higher fuel prices that usually happen when spring planting pumps up demand.
“When farmers head to the field and they plant 120 million acres of corn, a little under 100 million acres of soybeans, 20 million acres of cotton, wheat, other things, we always get a gouge in the spring, and then we feel it again in the fall, when we really burn fuel and go and harvest those crops. So it's typical, but it's on steroids this year.”
He says he can’t make up for the costs by charging more for his crops. He can only charge what the market will bear. For now he’ll buy smaller batches of high priced fuel, hoping the price will go down later.
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Craig Smith is a reporter for KGUN 9. With more than 40 years of reporting in cities like Tampa, Houston and Austin, Craig has covered more than 40 Space Shuttle launches and covered historic hurricanes like Katrina, Ivan, Andrew and Hugo. Share your story ideas and important issues with Craig by emailing craig.smith@kgun9.com or by connecting on Facebook and Twitter.
