José Carlos no longer has the bills. “In a few hours, the fertilizer went up by 100 euros per ton, now it costs 120 euros a day to plow a tractor. It’s a big nonsense,” he confesses before the microphones of Telemadrid.
Like many farmers, he lives by the price of diesel which, in just a few weeks, has risen enough to derail his budget. On February 17, a liter cost €0.93, on March 3 it went to €0.96 and, three days later, it was already €1.40. An increase of 44 cents per liter in less than three weeks.
Meanwhile, the crops do not wait. “We have the beautiful barley, but now it needs nitrogen and the fertilizer has gone through the roof,” he explains. On Thursday there will be a new tractor unit: three protest columns that will travel the roads to make visible that in the countryside the fuel crisis is noticeable before anywhere else.
Diesel, on the rise due to the conflict in Iran
The impact is not limited to the field. According to the Petroleum Bulletin of the European Union, the average price of diesel in Spain rose by 1.26% between February 26 and March 5, standing at €1,441/l, the highest level since December. Gasoline did the same, with 1% more to €1,486/l. Although our country remains below the euro zone average, experts warn that this gap could close soon.
The trigger for this rise is the war in Iran, which has triggered insecurity in the international oil market. For Spanish operators, the cost of fuel has already increased between 25 and 30 cents per liter. Some consumers have quickly noticed it: between the start of the conflict and a week later, gas stations have raised prices by about 20 cents on average.
“When oil rises, the price at the pump does so like a rocket; when it falls, the adjustment comes in slow motion,” summarizes Marcos Moure, president of the Moure Group. Their forecast is clear: prices will continue to rise during March with daily increases of between eight and ten cents per liter if the international situation does not improve.
And this climb leaves its mark. Filling an average tank of diesel now costs almost €79.25 and a tank of gasoline €81.73. An extra burden that not only affects the urban driver, but, above all, farmers like José who depend on their tractors to work day after day.