Diesel squeeze hits supply chains
A recent video documents a diesel shortage that is disrupting food supply chains, showing how fuel constraints can cascade through farming, transport and storage. The piece argues those upstream energy and logistics shocks can create effective shutdowns even when factories remain operational. (youtube.com)
Diesel shortages do not just idle trucks; they can stall planting, harvesting, refrigeration and store deliveries in the same week. (bloomberg.com) Food moves on diesel at nearly every step. In the United States, trucks ship 83 percent of agricultural products and 92 percent of dairy, fruit, vegetables and nuts, according to a United States Department of Agriculture-backed summary published in 2025. (ams.usda.gov) The fuel bill is already climbing. The United States average retail diesel price rose to $5.643 a gallon on April 6, 2026, up 24.2 cents in one week, while California reached $7.567 a gallon, according to the Energy Information Administration. (eia.gov) Researchers at the New Jersey Institute of Technology found higher diesel prices and weaker driver availability pushed up the transportation component of fresh-food prices in data from January 2017 through December 2022. Their study covered apples, potatoes, onions and tomatoes. (web.njit.edu) That chain reaction starts on farms. Bloomberg reported on March 13, 2026 that farmers across Asia and Europe were struggling to secure diesel for irrigation pumps, tractors and fishing boats after attacks on energy infrastructure in the Middle East disrupted flows through the Strait of Hormuz. (bloomberg.com) It continues after harvest. The Food and Agriculture Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme said in a 2022 report that lack of effective refrigeration contributes to the loss of 526 million tons of food production, or 12 percent of the global total. (fao.org) Cold storage and refrigerated transport still need energy even when factories stay open. The same United Nations report said developing countries could save 144 million tonnes of food a year if they had cold-chain infrastructure comparable to developed countries. (fao.org) The trucking side has not had much slack, either. The American Transportation Research Institute said total marginal trucking costs hit $2.270 per mile in 2023, a record high, after reaching $2.251 per mile in 2022. (truckingresearch.org; ttnews.com) The result is a supply chain that can look open on paper and still fail in practice. If diesel is scarce or priced out of reach, tractors miss field work, trucks cut routes, coolers go dark and food arrives later, in smaller volumes, or not at all. (bloomberg.com; web.njit.edu; fao.org)
