On Wednesday, AAA reported another record for diesel prices in the midstate. The cost was at $4.57 per gallon.

The cost for farm diesel was about 40 cents lower. That is because farm diesel has fewer additives and fewer taxes. Still, the prices are heavily impacting farmers.

Darrell Heagy, who works his family's dairy farm near Ono, Lebanon County, said farming takes a of equipment - and a lot of diesel fuel.

"You try to save fuel when you can," Heagy said, "but things that need to happen everyday need to happen just like they did before."

The Heagy family filled its large diesel tank three weeks ago. It cost more than $9,000 - double what it cost last year. "You just learn to go with the ups and downs," said Ed Heagy, Darrell's father.

"On an average year, we're going to burn probably around 12,000 to 15,000 gallons on our farm," said Dale Heagy.

Dale Heagy not only works the family farm, he is president of the Lebanon County Farm Bureau. He said a tractor burns about five gallons of diesel per hour - costing the family about $20 for each hour of field work.

On Wednesday, the Heagy's ran three tractors and one harvester. Buy nightfall, they had run those four pieces of equipment for about 10 hours. At $20 an hour for each piece of equipment, the Heagy's spent about $800 on fuel costs for just one day.

Dale Heagy said farmers are also hurt because shipping costs are passed on to them. "To truck our milk, the hauling starts going up because the price of fuel," Dale said. "If we're buying grain, to get it trucked in here, that also increases."

For the Heagy's and many others, this means less profit but even more hard work. Still, they are determined to continue.

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