Fertilizer shortages beginning to crop up
January 28th, 2008 by Jim JustFrom an article in FarmTalk Online:
“Supplies of nitrogen fertilizers, as well as phosphorus and potassium fertilizers, are tight throughout the United States. . .
“In fact, it is currently difficult to buy fertilizer nitrogen for winter wheat topdressing and/or this spring´s row crops unless the supply has already been lined up—regardless of what the posted prices are . . .
“The sharp increase in price and accompanying fertilizer N shortage is not a sudden development . . . Unprecedented market forces have markedly changed the fertilizer industry over the past decade which has set the stage for the current supply/demand imbalance and resulting high prices . . .
“Over the past decade, much of our fertilizer nitrogen manufacturing capacity has shut down in the U.S. as a result of sharp increases and fluctuations in natural gas costs [etc] . . .
“As a result, more and more nitrogen fertilizer is now imported from countries in the Middle East, South America, the former Soviet Union, and other low-cost natural gas areas . . . More than 50 percent U.S. fertilizer nitrogen supply is imported annually – and our dependence on foreign imports continues to increase.
“Also, global demand for this supply of fertilizer nitrogen continues to increase, especially in countries such as China and India with rapidly expanding economies . . .”
This article brought to mind a piece I read a few days ago in Robert Rapier’s R-Squared Energy Blog on the impacts of biofuel mandates in Wales. I didn’t comment on it then, but it has stuck in my mind. Rapier reports on a farmer’s complaint about fertilizer supplies:
“This weekend I made inquires about ordering this year’s fertiliser for our holding.
“The answer was, quite frankly, shocking. Our local supplier usually has a stock of 4,000 tonnes for local growers (we just want one tonne of that…).
“This year, however, their total allocation is being pegged at 640 tonnes. The rest, it seems, has been shipped to the USA for the biofuel industry. The silos and bunkers are empty.
“And, to add insult to injury, the meagre amount that the supplier has been left with has gone up by £100 a tonne over last year’s price.
“I foresee near riots in the next couple of months at agricultural suppliers across the land.”