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Show Farm Bureau says electric hikes could ruin farmers Following on the heels of the most disastrous weather-related farm problems pro-blems in recent history, a proposed electric rate hike sought by Utah Power & Light Company could be the "final blow" that puts many Utah farmers out of business this year, according ac-cording to an official of the state's . largest farmranch organization who will appeal to the Public Service Commission Com-mission to deny the Utah Power & Light Co. rate request now being considered con-sidered by the regulatory agency. In testimony being prepared for presentation to the PSC in a hearing now set for July 7, Utah Farm Bureau Executive Vice President C. Booth Wallentine said Utah farmers who purchase power from UP&L have experienced ex-perienced rate increases over the past eight years averaging 21 percent per year, "sharply outpacing the rate of inflation." Against the background of these rate increases, the past three years of depression-era low farm income, in-come, compounded by this year's flood damage to agriculture, farmers "are not in an economic position to absorb the proposed rate increases," Wallentine Wallen-tine said. "We simply cannot understand how the power company thinks we can handle han-dle a 31 percent rate increase since the end of the last irrigation pumping season. It's not in the cards, the money isn't there," Wallentine said. "We're going to destroy this agricultural industry, in-dustry, and UP&L is going to have to come face to face with that reality." Agriculture is Utah's largest and most basic industry, with annual cash receipts totaling about $600 million. Every farm dollar is estimated to generate another $4-4.50 in the state's general economy. Farmers who must rely on pump irrigation ir-rigation for their crops are most severely impacted by increasing power costs. During the 1970s there was a 20 percent expansion in Utah cropland, with most of those newly-tilled newly-tilled acres being irrigated with pumped water. In recent years irrigation pumpers have had to deal with extremely high interest rates, hyper-inflation in the price of the raw materials used to produce pro-duce a crop and power rates that "grossly exceeded even the unreasonably high inflation suffered by the rest of the economy," Wallentine Wallen-tine testified. Weather and flood-related problems this year will result in at least a 35-40 percent statewide crop loss and property pro-perty damages estimated in the millions of dollars. Agriculture is the industry hardest hit by the natural disaster, Wallentine said, with about 180,000 acres of prime farmland flooded flood-ed and another 100,000 acres without irrigation water because of damage to water delivery systems. "Farm Bureau's very conservative estimate at this point is that damage to Utah agriculture in 1DII3 will exceed $100 million," Wallentine said. "The net impact on the economy will be much greater than that. "Adding unfair electric rate increases in-creases to those losses will be Ihe final blow that drives some of our farmers out of business," he concluded. |