What a shut down because of the high cost of inputs means is, either the price of the fertilizer product is controlled, and they can’t pass the costs along, or the market to buy at the higher price is not there yet. When the price of food is allowed to go higher, then it becomes profitable to pay the higher price of fertilizer so you can benefit from producing more food. Somewhere along this chain the price of “something” is controlled.
The price of food at the moment is controlled by its ready availability because we are not eating food harvested before the cost of gas went up.
Part of this story (if you follow things in the Netherlands)....more intense political pressure to control farmers and production going on.
If you did raise prices drastically for fertilizer....you’d have to have some belief that prices for your product would reflect your ‘cost’. I don’t see that happening in Germany or France.
If you walk into any grocery in the past three months...prices are generally 20-percent higher, and some items are 50-percent higher.
I have a particular apple cider that I like (come only in bottles, not cans). They shut down for 3 months. Still selling product in bottles, but I doubt if these are German-produced bottles anymore. Wouldn’t shock me if they were being produced in Turkey and shipped to Germany to fill with the cider.