(WKYT) – Diesel fuel prices are continuing to surge, with AAA reporting Thursday that the national average hit a record high of $6.39 a gallon.
The Auto Club said that price is up nearly three-quarters compared to $3.70 a gallon at this time last year.
Leaders in the region’s livestock industry said the price increase is squeezing producers across the board.
Bluegrass Stockyards said it is the largest livestock market east of the Mississippi.
Jim Akers, chief operations officer at Bluegrass Stockyards, said record diesel prices are squeezing farmers who rely on heavy trucks and tractors to stay in business.
“It hits us at every turn. You know, the transportation cost of the farmers to get their animals here has obviously increased. Our commercial truckers that haul cattle in for farmers, they’ve had to go up on their rates,” Akers said.
Akers said that once livestock leave the sale ring, hauling a load hundreds of miles to Midwest feedlots costs $3,000 in trucking alone, and that the heaviest toll for farmers may not be what happens in the sale ring, but what’s happening back home in the fields.
“There’s some latent effect that we will suffer. Obviously, these farmers are out there burning diesel fuel in their tractors mowing their pastures, harvesting their crops, so there is an added expense there,” Akers said.
WKYT spoke with AAA spokesperson Lori Weaver Hawkins on Thursday. She said a person does not need to drive a diesel-fueled vehicle or haul cattle to feel the effects of high diesel prices.
“These higher fuel prices force transport companies to add those heavier surcharges along the way, and that in turn gets passed along to us, the end users, the consumers,” Weaver Hawkins said.
When asked about the price of fuel, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said federal officials need to intervene.
“I’ve pushed the federal government to pause their gas tax. That is something the president floated and I agree with him on, but his number one thing that he should do is end this war,” Beshear said.