Diesel Is Testing an Advantage Missouri Farmers Have That Most States Don't

By Tanner O'Neal Riley

Missouri's farm economy has something most farm states don't: strength in cattle, corn and soybeans all at once. The state produces the third-most beef cattle in the country, alongside significant row-crop production, and that mix has traditionally been a buffer against a bad year in any single sector. When crops struggle, cattle often carries the state through. When cattle struggles, crops pick up the slack.

This fall, record diesel prices are testing that buffer directly, because fuel doesn't care which sector it's fueling.

According to AAA, Missouri diesel hit $5.91 a gallon on Sept. 14, a record high that's about $2.50 more than a year ago. University of Missouri agricultural economist Ben Brown said the danger isn't that diesel is expensive. It's that the expense lands on corn, soybeans and cattle equally, at a moment when farmers need at least one of those sectors to be strong enough to offset the others.

"If you've got cattle, this is a rather robust period," Brown said. "If you're just crops, this is a painful period."

On corn alone, Brown estimates the diesel increase adds roughly $16 an acre in machinery operating costs, a significant number for farms running thousands of acres through harvest.