FARGO When Jim Diepolder was 9 years old, he first helped his father plant durum wheat.
Now, 39 years later, the Willow City, N.D., farmer is seeing the highest durum prices of his lifetime.
"It's pretty exciting," Diepolder said.
The price of durum, the grain used to produce pasta, has skyrocketed this fall. Durum, which fetched about $4.20 per bushel a year ago, now sells for more than $12 per bushel at North Dakota elevators.
That's a big deal in the state, which last year produced 59 percent of all U.S. durum.
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated in August that North Dakota will produce 46.4 million bushels of durum this year.
Current prices eclipse those of record-setting 1974, when heavy Russian wheat buying drove durum prices as high as $8 per bushel.
Poor crops in Europe help explain why durum prices are rising, said Ray Grabanski, president of Progressive Ag Marketing in Fargo.
Another factor is a wet spring and a hot summer that hurt durum yields in North Dakota, he said.
Some grain industry analysts have speculated that USDA's August estimate of state durum production is too high. The speculation has helped to push up prices. Higher durum prices are bound to drive up retail pasta prices, said Jim Streeter with Minot (N.D.) Milling Co.
His company, a division of Philadelphia Macaroni Co., daily produces more than a million pounds of durum products for pasta manufacturers.
"I see farmers' side, but there's another side, too," he said of higher durum prices.
Sandra McMerty, communications director for the North Dakota Wheat Commission in Bismarck, said durum prices have only a modest influence on the cost of pasta.
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She calculated that if a pound of pasta costs $1.50 and a 60-pound bushel of durum sells for $10 per bushel, durum accounts for 23 cents, or 15 percent, of the pasta's cost.
Consumers should consider the impact of energy, packaging, labeling and distribution on the cost of food, she said.
Adjusted for inflation, $12 today isn't nearly as good for farmers as $8 was in 1974, Diepolder said.
Eight dollars in 1974 has the same buying power as $33.74 today, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator.
Given inflation and rising fuel, equipment and fertilizer costs, farmers need higher prices, said Dell Gates, a Mohall, N.D., durum producer.
"It's overdue," he said of the spike in durum prices.
Many farmers already have sold much of this year's durum for far less than $12.
"You hear '$12', but that isn't what a lot of durum was sold at," Diepolder said.
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Bottineau (N.D.) Farmers Elevator is offering to buy durum for $12.75 per bushel.
That price is drawing a lot of interest but few sales, said manager Wayne Johnson.
"Guys are getting kind of nervous (about not selling their remaining durum). But they've seen how the price has gone up and they think it might keep going up," he said.
The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead and the Herald are Forum Communications Co. newspapers.
