Sept. 11, 2026, 12:35 AM PDT /
Updated Sept. 11, 2026, 2:31 AM PDT
By Steve Kopack and Kayla Steinberg
NBC News
Beyond the supermarket, however, grocery #prices will also reflect the rising cost of diesel across the entire food supply chain, starting with farmers.
The impact of $6-per-gallon diesel will make it even harder for some U.S. farmers, already under pressure this year from a #fertilizer #shortage, to stay afloat.
“It’ll push me right to the edge,” said Mark Mueller, a fourth-generation #Iowa farmer. “If I don’t get pushed over the edge by diesel fuel prices, higher fertilizer prices will push me over the edge because a lot of petroleum goes into fertilizer prices, as well.”
As long as the war in Iran keeps sending prices higher for necessities like diesel and fertilizer, he said, “we are endangering one of the strongest #economic pillars that we have in this country through economic uncertainty, higher prices.”
“We’re #shooting ourselves in the foot, and we don’t have to,” said Mueller, who chairs the Iowa Corn Growers Association.
Mueller is hardly alone in his frustration with how the war in Iran is affecting prices back home.
As #Republicans gathered in Dallas this week for what #President Donald Trump dubbed a midterm #election convention, a new NBC News poll found that around 70% of voters disapproved of his handling of the Iran war.
“I just see economic carnage the longer this war goes on,” Mueller said.
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