Feeling the Pinch By Rebekah Nash Photos by Dustin Mielke
Facing skyrocketing fertilizer and fuel prices, Oklahoma farmers and ranchers strive to build upon their agricultural heritage with the pressures of input prices, drought and world events weighing on their minds – and their pocketbooks.
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very time Clint Wilcox jumps into the cab of a tractor, a sprayer or a combine on his farm, he is taking the next step in a long line of decision-making he has painstakingly planned. With each pass in the field – whether it be to plant, to fertilize or to harvest – he is carefully balancing natural resources, time and inputs that he hopes will produce a crop he and his family can be proud of. And just like everyday Americans have seen inflation and supply chain shortages hit their pocketbooks as they buy even just the basic necessities daily life requires, farmers and ranchers like Wilcox are facing skyrocketing prices for fertilizer, fuel and equipment – all of which must be purchased before a single seed can be planted. Wilcox, a wheat, cotton, milo and cattle producer near Fairview, like many producers across the country, has been spending his time analyzing costs of operation and returns on investment for his farm and ranch. 16 — Oklahoma Country
“You can’t starve a profit out of anything,” Wilcox said. “It’s true in this industry and any other industry – without investment, businesses do not go anywhere.” After a seed is planted into the soil, it has to overcome a lot of time, weather and world events before making its way through the combine and to the grain elevator. One of the major inputs farmers use on their operations is fertilizer, which now comes with an increasingly hefty price tag. “Fertilizer has jumped dramatically in the past year or year and a half,” said Keeff Felty, a wheat and cotton farmer near Altus. “Depending on when and how you purchased it, the cost of fertilizer has definitely tripled.” Wilcox recalled the outlook of prices a year ago for urea ammonium nitrate, a common liquid fertilizer applied to fields to increase the nitrogen levels in soil. His operation applies 28% UAN to the fields, and in February 2021, he could buy a load transported to his farm for $145 per ton.