Farmers say the Government's slash in fuel costs has given them little relief, which means Kiwis can expect to be hit in the pocket with production costs on the rise.
Federated Farmers' Colin Hurst relies on his combine harvester to get the job done. He said that just three months ago, it cost a little over $2000 to fill it up.
Now, he said it was just over $3000.
"That's a 50 per cent rise in three months so it's a bit of an issue for us."
Since Monday, for the next three months, motorists benefit from a 25 cent per litre cut on their fuel excise and road user charges (RUC) for petrol and diesel.
But farmers didn't benefit from the Government's RUC cut because they didn't pay it anyway.
Farmers 1News spoke to said it wasn't just fuel prices hurting farming. That was because prices in production are up across the board, including huge cost hikes in chemicals and fertilisers.
Hurst also worried about shortages of foods like bread.
There was an upside for farmers though with Fonterra recently lifting its forecast farmgate milk prices to a record midpoint of $9.60 a kilogram for milk solids. Beef and grain prices were also increasing.
Nathan Penny, Westpac's senior agri-economist, said those increases, like with the farmgate price, flowed through with a lag into supermarket prices.
"It does depend on the product. So, you might see it sooner in fresh milk prices," Penny said.
Meanwhile, products that take longer to produce - like yoghurt and ice cream - would take about six to 12 months longer to hit shoppers in the pocket.
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