4-25 FB Gas Input Cost

 Input versus output.  That’s an old concept that can apply to many things in life. Relationships. If I don’t put anything into my marriage, how can I expect to get anything out. How about work? Don’t work hard,  that’s input, then I don’t advance in the company, that’s the output. What’s this got to do with farming?

 Gasoline jumped 5.6 percent last month and has risen nearly 28 percent in the past year. Consumers paid an average price of $3.81 a gallon nationwide on Friday according to the travel group AAA. That’s an input cost. But food prices rose just 0.8 percent last month.  That’s output but not exactly adequate to the farmer. Here’s local farmer Vaughn Jensen: “The first thing it meant when we filled up some of our tanks this spring, was it took and unworldly amount of money to pay for it. Fuel and fertilizer are tied together and our fertilizer costs are up as well so our input costs this year in terms of fuel and fertilizer are way above what they were five and 10 years ago.”