Farmers set record straight on food costs

Next time someone jumps on farmers for getting rich while families get stuck buying $3.75 gallons of milk, tell them corn growers make about 16 cents (4 percent of the purchase price) for that gallon. Then tell them labor and energy costs higher up the production chain account for nearly 60 percent ($2.18) of that price. The rest comes from a combination of other costs, like marketing and stocking at the store, equipment depreciation and plastics at the plant, not to mention a skyrocketing international demand for food and energy as East Asian countries develop sophisticated free-market economies.