March 27, 2005
KCBS
This year's steep rise in the price of crude oil has hit California farmers particularly hard. High diesel fuel prices are an overhead cost many of the state's growers cannot afford to pass along to consumers.
"We're seeing increases on diesel prices up over seventy cents a gallon," Mike Howard told KCBS's Dave McQueen. Howard is co-owner of Lakeview Petroleum Company in Marysville which provides fuel to many of the state's farms.
Yolo said that higher crude oil prices drive up the cost of other petroleum products used to farm besides fuel for tractors, harvesters, and trucks.
"It also affects their chemicals, their sprays," Howard said.
In order to remain competitive, a California farmer often cannot raise prices to keep pace with rising overhead costs of planting, harvest, and shipping, said Howard.
"If he's up against other countries in the world producing the same product for a lot cheaper, and with chemicals and stuff like that we put on our fruits and vegetables that other countries don't have to," Howard said, "it real tough for our guys."
Howard said farmers and truckers simply have to absorb the higher costs.
"Even the trucking industry doesn't work that way. They're the ones
that might have to just eat margin and hope they can survive another year," said Howard.
Howard said that the fuel costs have affected many crops, from prunes to rice.
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