We miss Paul Harvey letting us know “the rest of the story.”
Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith is touting a bill she co-sponsored to eliminate tariffs and countervailing duties on phosphate fertilizer imports. “Mississippi farmers depend on affordable fertilizer to stay competitive,” she said. “With input costs continuing to strain farmers’ bottom line, Congress must act.”
Well and good, but the rest of the story tells us Sen. Hyde-Smith could have acted sooner.
Key Mississippi crops like corn and sorghum (corn is the second most prevalent crop to soybeans) depend heavily on nitrogen-based fertilizer, not just phosphate fertilizer.
“In the six weeks since the war (in Iran) started,” the Delta Farm Press reported that urea prices have surged 49%, UAN 38%, and anhydrous ammonia 32%. The war has also driven diesel fuel, which nearly all farmers depend on, from $3.17 a gallon in Mississippi a year ago to $5.03 last week, according to AAA.
“We got people that were barely struggling to get by, and now they’ve been hit with two major increases for fertilizer and fuel just exactly at the wrong time when we needed them,” Como corn farmer Sledge Taylor told National Public Radio. “It’s going to be the nail in the coffin for a number of farmers.”
Senators and congressmen swear an oath to uphold the Constitution. That constitution places solely on the Congress the power to declare war. Had Sen. Hyde-Smith, and others touting their concern for farmers, lived up to their oaths of office, the disruptions caused by the Iran war could have been mitigated and possibly avoided.
No doubt congressional debate and discussion to approve an Iran war request from President Trump would have revealed the likely economic consequences, particularly to farmers. After all, the war zone sits at the crossroads of much of the world’s fuel and fertilizer supplies.
A corn and soybean farmer in South Dakota saw it coming. He told Newsweek that as soon as the news broke on the Iran attacks, he rushed to lock in one last load of urea, the most widely used nitrogen fertilizer. Many were not so fortunate. The American Farm Bureau reported that only 19% of farmers in the south preordered fertilizer.
Rising diesel and fertilizer costs are making it tough on Mississippi farmers, MSU Extension Service agricultural economist Will Maples told the Columbus Commercial Dispatch. “I’m afraid guys who are at retirement age (will) say they’re just done, and don’t want to keep going in this current low price, high input cost environment.”
“When a man makes a vow to the Lord or takes an oath to obligate himself by a pledge, he must not break his word but must do everything he said”– Numbers 30.2.
Bill Crawford is an author and syndicated columnist from Jackson.
