YAZOO COUNTY, Miss. — Mississippi Delta farmers are facing another expensive planting season as fertilizer and fuel costs continue to climb.

Farmers in Yazoo and Sharkey counties, Clay Adcock and Jeffrey Mitchell, said it has been years since their crops turned a real profit.

“I guess it would be since 2022,” Adcock said.

“Last 2.5 to three years since we had a very profitable year,” Mitchell said.

Rising input costs squeeze farmers

Adcock said he was paying $300 per ton of fertilizer before the war with Iran broke out. He is now paying double for the same amount. Mitchell saw similar spikes.

“Fertilizer was up 25% before the Iranian conflict already,” Mitchell said. “Then since that started Diesel fuel is up 40% in the last six months.”

Survey and research from the American Farm Bureau show they are not the only ones feeling the pinch.

“We’ve got trouble with the farming community,” Adcock said. “And you can see that with the bankruptcies that are there and no young farmers that can afford the capital to get started.”

Mitchell said today’s farmers face a shrinking industry of suppliers. 75% of all fertilizer in the U.S. comes from four companies: Yara USA, CF Industries, Nutrien and Koch Industries.

“With the world market on fertilizer, pretty much everyone has the same price,” Mitchell said. “It’s not like you can go to store B, get a better price.”

forces

Oil and natural gas cut off in the Strait of Hormuz forces energy companies worldwide to compete for less supply. The spike in costs passes on to fertilizer producers, who pass higher prices on to distributors, leaving family farms at the end of the line with the most expensive bills.

“They deliver it to us and we’re at their mercy,” Adcock said.

Adcock said he would like to see more regulation to even the playing field among fertilizer companies and prevent potential price gouging.

“There should be guiderails in place to keep fertilizer producers within a range and if they get out of that range it throws up red flags as they do in the SEC with stocks,” Adcock said. “Have some consistency in our business.”

Mitchell said the costs will circle back to consumers at the store. The spike in diesel also increases the cost of transporting finished crops after harvest to stores.

“Everything will be higher once it gets to Kroger or Wal-Mart or wherever,” Mitchell said. “They’ll just pass it onto consumers.”

It is too early to tell what the final prices will look like once harvest season is over. Each farmer said one way consumers can help is to buy as much produce as possible directly from farmers at markets and buy American items.

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JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Brandi Carter needs her wine.

As the owner of Levure Bottle Shop in Jackson, Mississippi, she sells natural wine delivered to her business by a state agency responsible for distributing alcoholic beverages to liquor stores, bars and restaurants. But delays caused by problems in a state warehouse have led Carter and many other retailers to see their inventory dwindle and their business drop as they wait for new shipments.

Carter, who also handles the beverage program for a restaurant in Jackson, said she has been dealing with delays since February, and she’s feeling helpless as traffic in her store goes down.

“I’ve just reached acceptance that this is our new normal, and it’s awful,” Carter said Wednesday.

The state is the only distributor of liquor in Mississippi

In Mississippi, the state’s Alcoholic Beverage Control department — an arm of the Mississippi Department of Revenue — is responsible for distributing wine and liquor to businesses that sell it. That’s different than other states, where individual companies handle alcohol distribution, Carter said.

During the week ending April 12, there were more than 172,000 cases that were pending delivery, and it was taking an average of 17 days for businesses to receive their orders, according to the Mississippi Department of Revenue.

Those numbers are down from the week ending March 1, when the backup appeared to be at its peak for the year. At that time, there were more than 220,000 cases pending delivery, and it was taking an average of 25 days for the process to be completed.

In contrast, the number of cases pending delivery was more than 51,000 and the wait time was three days for the week ending Jan. 11., the department said.

Carter said the backlog has resulted in a wait of four to five weeks, as opposed to a few days to two weeks before the delays began.

Warehouse issues caused the delay

Shipping delays from the state’s 40-year-old warehouse emerged in January as it went away from an “obsolete” conveyor belt system to one where pallets were used to move cases, according to a statement from the Mississippi Department of Revenue. A new warehouse management system experienced technical issues, leading to delays, the department said.

“The computer program that they implemented for the warehouse wasn’t working effectively with the ordering side,” Carter said. “So the first big chunk was the biggest problem, because things were being marked as shipped, but they weren’t shipped.”

The department said technical issues have been resolved and the warehouse is operating at full capacity, with pending orders being shipped as retail orders increase.

“While capacity at the existing facility has been a challenge for well over five years, there is not an alcohol shortage,” the department said. “As retail ordering stabilizes, we anticipate shipments returning to normal volume within the coming weeks.”

Lawmakers thought about changing the system

The Mississippi legislature debated temporarily allowing out-of-state distributors to sell and ship alcohol directly to retailers. The law would have been repealed after two years, but it did not pass. The state’s legislative session has since ended.

A new warehouse set to be completed by the end of this year will be able to store and ship over twice as many cases as the current facility, the revenue department said.

Retailers, customers stymied by the backlog

Josh Sorrell, owner of Spillway Wine and Spirits in Brandon, said he used to order 600 cases in a day, but he is now limited to 100 cases per day. About 30% to 40% of the items he usually orders on a daily basis have been unavailable, he said.

Sorrell believes restoring the conveyor belt system would fix the problem. He has asked Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves to declare a state of emergency.

If delays continue, Sorrell’s concerned that business will suffer into the end of the year, when he makes a lot of his sales.

“As it gets busier, we’re gonna crumble,” he said. “I mean, it’s going to be really hard at 100 cases a day to stock up for a full October, November, December.”

Meanwhile, customers are going to three or four stores looking for their specific bottle, and they sometimes can’t find it, Sorrell said.

“It’s frustrating to lose people at the door who are looking for a specific product that I can’t even get from the state,” he said.

On Thursday, Lauren Roberts went to Sorrell’s store looking for Soda Jerk’s orange cream shots, but he was out, just like the supermarket where she usually buys it. So, she bought another type of drink for an upcoming celebration with her family.

“We’re having a little get-together this weekend because it’s my daughter’s prom and her boyfriend’s family’s coming,” Roberts said. “So everybody has their drink of choice, but me.”

______

Sainz reported from Memphis, Tennessee.

RAYMOND, Miss. — Dr. Clyde Muse, known as “the godfather” of community colleges in Mississippi, left a legacy that reached students and staff across Hinds Community College’s campuses.

Six years ago, Dr. Muse walked out the door for the last time as president of Hinds Community College. Hinds Community College President Dr. Stephen Vacik said he benefited from Dr. Muse’s guidance.

“Essentially what he said to me was, ‘Call me if you need something, call me, but otherwise I’m not going to bother you,’” Dr. Vacik said. “He was always very good about giving space to be me. I really appreciate that, and I hope that I’ve done the same for the people who work with me.”

Dr. Muse’s retirement was known as “Celebrating the Muse Legacy,” something that stretches back generations for alumni like Myra Beard, class of 1984.

“I’m number six of seven kids that went through Hinds with Dr. Muse,” Beard said. “He was so caring about his students.”

“He wanted us to come and trick or treat at his house and we said you’ve got to be kidding, and he said no,” Beard said. “He invited us in to come to a big Halloween Party. He did the same thing at Christmas.”

Dr. Muse’s impact can also be felt in the local workforce. Paige Hataway, a native of Raymond, stayed because Dr. Muse grew Hinds Community College’s nursing program.

“We had a lot of remodeling on the building. It is an older building, but he made sure everything was being worked on,” Hataway said. “And we also had funds and stuff for books. So, he definitely made a difference.”

Dr. Muse’s service will be held at Hinds Community College on Monday at Cain-Cochran Hall on the Raymond Campus. Visitation will be from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.; the service begins at 3 p.m.

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