ST. AGATHA – Keith Labrie was running to and fro Wednesday, checking fields and seeing to the upkeep of machinery in Labrie Farms’ huge maintenance garage on Route 162.

Maintenance work is a significant part of an operation like Labrie Farms, where they use six trucks, five tractors and many other machines like potato and seed planters, sprayers, winnowers, snow-throwers, bin loaders and pickup trucks to do their work.

This year, the price of fuel, which has gone up some 30 percent since farm operators signed contracts for potato processing last winter, has become a cause for anxiety.

“We signed preseason [potato] contracts last February when the price of fuel was $1.50 a gallon,” Labrie said. “Now the price is $2.89 a gallon for diesel, and maybe 45 cents less for farm-use diesel.

“That doesn’t even take into consideration the price increases we’ve had because of petroleum-based chemicals we use, like fertilizer,” he said. “The contract price increase we had doesn’t even come close” to making up the difference in price for the fertilizer increases.

During harvest, the grower said, it’s very easy to burn 500 gallons of fuel a day with five tractors and six trucks going.

Labrie said their six trucks hauling potatoes from the field to storage houses easily burn 150 gallons of fuel a day. Tractors pulling huge harvesters through potato fields use another 235 gallons a day. Some harvesting machines also have diesel engines on them to operate huge blowers.

The 400 gallons a day used during harvest goes on for 14 to 25 days, depending on the size of the farm and operation. The Labries hope to complete it in 21 days.

That’s not counting the 100 gallons of fuel a day tilling the land with a nine-row plow, the weekly spraying during growing season, or the 120-mile trip trucking from their storage facility to a plant in Easton during the winter and spring months. Finally, storage houses need to be heated during Maine’s bitter winter, and more dollars go up the chimneys.

“The fuel crunch is hard on everyone,” Labrie said. “It’s even worse for agricultural operations because our work is so dependent on machinery.

“It’s a fuel-intensive industry,” he said. “The recent increases have been quite a jolt.”

It was too muddy Wednesday to harvest potatoes on the 1,200-acre farm operation that stretches from St. David Village on the east to Fort Kent on the west and St. Agatha and Sinclair to the south, and machinery needed tending during the layover time.

The fourth generation Labrie Farms is operated by Keith and his brother Duane and their father Daniel, who – depending on whom you talk to – is either a helper, according to the patriarch, or an integral part of the operation, according to Keith. They have the help of two full-time employees, their wives and children and a score of part-time employees during planting, harvesting and shipping seasons.

Processing potato growers like the Labries are on a fixed budget each year. After contracts are signed, their income doesn’t grow. Table stock growers face more of a gamble. With no contract price, they are at the mercy of the market.

During the last two years, table stock growers have witnessed disastrous years. This year table stock prices seem “more promising. Time will tell,” Labrie said.

“All we can hope for is the spring [price] negotiations to make up for our extra costs,” he said. “Maybe the companies will help us out with this.”