Record-high diesel prices are coming at the worst possible time for Iowa farmer Kinser Jensen.
He’d held off buying diesel after the cost skyrocketed at the beginning of the Iran war, hoping prices would recede. But harvest is just weeks away, and with it the heavy fuel demands involved in bringing in the crop. Diesel is only getting more expensive.
“I’m not exactly sure what we’re going to do,” said Jensen, 32, who runs a 3,400-acre corn and soybean farm with his 62 year-old father in northeastern Iowa. “At some point here, I’m just going to have to pull the trigger and buy the fuel.”
Jensen, a 2024 Donald Trump supporter who gravitates toward Republicans, said the high diesel prices are causing him to question how farmer-friendly the Trump administration really has been.
The costs of diesel and home heating oil have surged faster than gasoline in recent months, particularly hammering states that are critical battlegrounds in November’s midterm congressional elections — just as mail-in ballots arrive.
In Alaska, many remote communities rely on diesel generators for electricity. The climate is harsh, freight moves over long distances and per-capita usage of diesel and home heating oil is more than four times the national average. In Midwest states like Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska, farm equipment runs on diesel. In Maine and New Hampshire, large numbers of homeowners depend on heating oil to get through cold winters.
