SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News)-The fall season is well underway and seems like any other, but at Plumpton Farms and many other farms across Central New York, this could not be further from the truth. Rising inflation has impacted people across the country, but farmers are especially feeling the heat. Farmers like Ingie Plumpton from Plumpton Farms is seeing the effects of this inflation raising the prices on necessary materials such as seeds and fertilizer that he needs for his pumpkin patch.
Seed prices have increased by ten percent this year and the price on fertilizer has doubled. This is costing Plumpton thousands of dollars on top of the $60,000 it takes to maintain his property. With prices like these and continuing rising inflation, Plumpton doesn’t know how many pumpkins he will be able to sell by the end of the Halloween season.
“It really depends on the year,” says Plumpton. “Sometimes I’m down to nine pumpkins; out of all of them out [in the fields], out of all of these [in the greenhouse]. Some years I have maybe a pickup truck full.”
However, while Plumpton may be feeling the strain from the inflation, he’s making sure his customers don’t. For this year, even with the increase, Plumpton has refused to raise his prices and continues putting his customers first saying that he doesn’t feel the need to make his pumpkins more expensive.
Plumpton says that even with inflation on seeds and fertilizer he has had plenty of pumpkins to sell to his costumers and is looking forward to seeing people flock to his fields in the coming weekends.
