Patrick Redman is a fourth-generation farmer.
The farm has been a part of the family since the late 1920s when his great grandparents acquired the land.
“Back in those days, the family made full living off the farm,” he said. “This was one farm of many that he had lots of employees whose full-time living was made off the farm.”
But like many legacy farms, the family shifted away from taking care of the farm full-time.
When Redman came back from college to help manage the farm, he quickly realized that having a full-time job while also trying to direct a family farm was going to be a huge challenge.
“We made the decision then to start renting out our crop ground,” he said. “We still own it, but we have tenants that come in and take care of that. They pay yearly rent on that, and we concentrate more on the cattle and livestock.”
That helped lighten the workload, but a new problem emerged in more recent years; the cost to keep things going.
Input costs including diesel fuel and fertilizer went up significantly in the last few years, and it has made farming of all different sizes more challenging.
“Our average tractor is going to burn eight gallons of fuel an hour,” he said. “We're paying $2 more a gallon than what we were before. Now all of a sudden, for one tractor you're looking at another $60, $70, $80 a day in fuel by the end of a five-day week. It’s an extra $500 a week, $2,000 a month, four months out of the year.”
And then there’s all the little expenses that you must be accounted for. Redman said for example, the filters he has to replace every few months in his equipment shot up last year as well.
“This tractor, specifically one of them over there, used to always cost about $500 a year to buy the filters, last year $1100 to buy the same filters,” he said. “And you had to wait a month to get them!”
Even vitamin shots and vaccines for cattle have seen massive price increases in the last few years.
“That cost doubled two years ago,” he said. “And so I say that the filters, the vaccines, you're not talking $100,000, you're talking what used to cost three or $4,000 now cost seven or $8,000. Those are the things that are killing us.”
Worst of all though is the price of fertilizer – which Redman said increased by nearly 80% last year. Specifically, nitrogen was nearly $1,000 a ton, up from $400 a ton.
That increase happened because of complex, interconnected issues on the supply side of the supply-and-demand equation.
According to Todd Davis, the chief economist of the Indiana Farm Bureau federation, it started back in August of 2021 when hurricane Ida hit Louisiana, affecting the production of anhydrous ammonia.
“Louisiana is a major hub for petroleum and natural gas, but also for production of anhydrous ammonia,” he said. “The largest plant that makes anhydrous is in Louisiana. And that plant produces about 20 percent of the U.S. capacity. So that plant was affected. That was a big loss in the production of anhydrous.”
Source: indianapublicmedia.org
Photo Credit: GettyImages-D-Keine
Categories: Indiana, Crops, Equipment & Machinery, Livestock