Eye On The Road, Day Two
CBS News correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi's Web-exclusive road diary on how Americans are coping with the high price of gas.
On The Road To Sylvania, Ga.
It's day two of our road trip and we spent the night outside of Brunswick, Ga. Of course, we could be anywhere. This highway exit looks like any other exit anywhere — McDonald's to the right, Burger King to the left, gas stations and an assortment of less than exciting/glamorous/clean motels dotted in between.
The only hint that we're in the South comes at the Huddle House down the road this morning, where the waitress did not flinch when I ordered "sweet tea" for breakfast.
Needless to say, we're looking forward to getting off the highway and into the country. We'll be spending the day in Sylvania, Ga., talking with some farmers who are hurting because of the high price of natural gas.
Ben Boyd farms 4,000 acres of peanuts, cotton, and corn with his brother and father near Sylvania. He's seen the price of fertilizer skyrocket over the last few years (natural gas is the key ingredient). It costs him an additional $54,000 a year just for fertilizer.
He has about five tractors running a day, each burning 100 gallons of diesel (at $2.45 a gallon) a day. That's an extra $1,300 in fuel alone. He told us, "I can't take a whole lot more of that." Boyd says that, "at this point I'm worried about having enough operating capital to put fuel in the tractor and put out the fertilizer" to get his crop in — and more important, to get his crop out.
Smaller farms are struggling, too. Lindy Sheppard farms some 2,000 acres near Sylvania. He says gas prices have pushed him to his tipping point. "Hindsight is 20/20, but if I had to do it all over again, I would have farmed last year and probably wouldn't have farmed this year. I really should have gotten out of it a couple years ago."
If he can't negotiate his way through this year, he might get out of farming all together. He could always sell his land and we'll have another patch of the world that looks like a nondescript highway exit — McDonalds to the right, Burger King to the left.