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Input costs up on Kansas farms
Published Thursday, July 31, 2008 at 10:33 AM
MANHATTAN, Kan. - Even before 2008's repeatedly record-high oil prices, energy was rapidly escalating Kansans´ cost of doing business on the farm. For non-irrigated crop farms in the Kansas Farm Management Association, last year´s average energy-related costs per acre were 37 percent higher than their previous five-year (2002-06) average. In contrast, total crop production costs for 2007 were 29 percent higher, according to Michael Langemeier, agricultural economist with Kansas State University Research and Extension. "To keep this in perspective, though, you´ve got to remember that in addition to price changes, technology and crop mix can impact per- acre energy costs," Langemeier said. "Adopting no-till or reduced tillage systems, for example, is a change in technology. Adoption of those systems has increased in recent years. And, as a result, this on-going change in tillage systems actually dampened the impact that 2007´s energy price hikes had on energy-related cropping costs." The percentage rise in fertilizer costs was even higher than the one for energy, he said. In part, that´s because a large part of fertilizer´s entire 2002-07 cost increase occurred just last year. "Compared to the per-acre average for non-irrigated crop farms from 2002 through 2006, last year´s fertilizer costs were 60 percent higher," Langemeier said. More information on general farm management, as well as past production costs for crop and livestock farms, is available on the K- State Extension Agricultural Economics Web site (www.agmanager.info).

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