ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — The war in Iran isn’t just driving up gas prices—it’s starting to hit the food Americans eat and the crops farmers can produce. New data shows U.S. farmers are planting less corn and wheat this season because fertilizer costs are soaring, a trend already affecting family-run farms in Northeast Florida.
At Wesley Wells Farms in St. Augustine, the impact is visible across 400 acres of vegetables, packed with produce, and livestock. One-week-old piglets sleep in the barn, while chickens cluck in the yard. The vegetables are for ‘you pick’, so you can pick your own vegetables.
“We sell our pork, beef… we sell eggs, we have our own chickens,” said Wesley Wells.
Sweet corn, okra, squash, zucchini, cucumbers and peppers grow in the fields, feeding families locally, while commercial corn is sent to mills in Columbia County for animal feed and potatoes are sold to brokers supplying major retailers including Wal-Mart, Costco, and BJ’s.
But producing food is becoming more expensive. “We’re burning $200, $300 on fuel once we start running on stuff. Once you jack that up, our fuel prices have gone up dramatically,” Wells said. Diesel to run tractors and fertilizer to grow crops are both spiking as global conflict disrupts supply chains.
“And then something happens like this, and our fuel jumps up dramatically and not just fuel, but fertilizer, because it’s being transported also, goes up… but everything we’re being paid stays the same,” he added. Twenty-five acres of the farm are reserved for families to pick their own produce—though for a price.
Economists say that rising fertilizer costs, which depend heavily on natural gas from the Middle East, are already trickling down to grocery store prices. Fertilizer is a critical ingredient in nitrogen-based products needed to grow safe vegetables. “You can’t just put raw fertilizer onto vegetables. There’s a food safety problem there, with diseases,” Wells explained. Prices for grain-based foods like bread, and for beef and dairy, could rise between 2 and 8 percent, experts say.
Despite the economic pressure, farmers like Wells are focused on their crops and their families. “It’s not going to be one of them profit years. It’s going to be one of those break-even… just make it through one more year,” he said. The conflict overseas is also affecting supply lines. “A lot of it is shipped in from overseas. When they can’t get it in here… because of wars, that’s driving the price up on it,” Wells said. “Some of the varieties of plants we’re trying to grow, they told us… the trucking is affecting that side of it.”
From the piglets and poultry to the vegetables in the fields, the story at Wesley Wells Farms is clear: you reap what you sow—but when global conflict raises the cost of farming, everyone pays the price. Despite a season of uncertainty, Wells is planting hope, one harvest at a time.
Economists say buying locally grown fruits and vegetables at farms and farmers’ markets can help families reduce grocery costs while supporting farmers navigating an increasingly volatile market.
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