By Jessica Domel
Multimedia Reporter

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Department of Justice (DOJ) are working together to ensure foreign influences are not impacting farmers’ input costs.

“As I was traveling around the country, I heard a lot about fertilizer, seed, labor, interest rates, tractors, and how it had all gone sky high—especially in the last four years,” U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins told the Ag Outlook Forum. “U.S. farm production inputs all cost so much more today than they did under the last Trump administration.”

According to Rollins, seed costs are up 18%, fuel and oil prices are up 325, labor costs are up 47% and electricity prices have risen more than 35%.

The cost of vehicles and machines are up 45%. Fertilizer costs increased 37%.

“I am incredibly concerned about undue foreign influence on this last market (fertilizer), especially given a significant portion of our fertilizer production is overseas,” Rollins said.

To that end, Rollins said USDA and the DOJ signed a memorandum of understanding outlining a joint commitment that Rollins said will “protect American farmers and ranchers from the burdens imposed by a high and volatile input costs such as feed, fertilizer, fuel, seed, equipment and other essential goods, while ensuring competitive supply chains, lowering consumer prices and the resilience of US agriculture and the food supply.

Effective immediately, USDA and DOJ will work hand-in-hand to investigate cost increases.

Under the agreement, DOJ’s Antitrust Division and USDA will “…take a hard look and scrutinize competitive conditions in the agricultural marketplace, including antitrust enforcement that promotes free market competition,” Rollins said. “Farmers have enough challenges to deal with sky high input prices should not be one of them.”

Rollins said there will be more announcements to come on that, but the work has already begun.