Posted on 11/12/2021 12:29:43 PM PST by MNJohnnie
United States agricultural suppliers are sounding the alarm over the rising cost of fertilizers that threatens to lower crop yields and worsen strains on global food supplies.
“It’s put a stranglehold on us,” said John Ortiz, sales manager at BigYield.us in Garden City, Missouri, an organization focused on creating strategies that increase the size and quality of crops grown on the farm using liquid nitrogen-based fertilizers.
“You’re always going to need seed. You’re always going to need fertilizer” to grow crops on a large scale, Ortiz told The Epoch Times. “People need to eat.”
Fertilizers have been in short supply in recent months due to the high cost of natural gas, a main ingredient used in their production.
Prices have nearly tripled in the past year alone, Ortiz said.
In 2020 it cost about $48 to treat one acre of top soil with fertilizer. In 2021 it costs around $120 an acre—an increase of $72, Ortiz said.
As a result, farmers are having to consider scaling back on fertilizer applications and seeking alternative methods to energize precious cover soil.
Preparing For Worse Shortages “We’re preparing,” Ortiz said, but if the fertilizer “is not there, it’s not there. If you run out, you run out. How do you get more?”
Shipping logistics, coupled with the rising cost of transportation, have also become an issue of concern, he said.
“It’s the trickle down effect,” Ortiz said, adding that farmers are “very nervous.”
“It’s one of these situations we’ve never been in before.”
Ortiz said it’s not just the higher price of fertilizer that has farmers worried, but the rising cost of insecticides and herbicides as well.
“Instead of spraying the ground,” in many cases, “they’re going back to working the ground,” using traditional, or alternative, growing methods. “A lot of guys are going away from growing (non-GMO) corn to growing soy,” Ortiz said.
Switching from dry to liquid fertilizers helps to boost efficiency and crop yields, he said.
As the world’s fourth largest producer of nitrogen-based fertilizers, the U.S. receives 20 percent of its urea and 40 percent of ammonium nitrate from Russia. China is also a big supplier of these products as the world’s second largest producer and exporter.
Both countries announced recently that they will limit exports of nitrogen fertilizers, hoping to contain any further increase in food prices.
U.S. farmers are already feeling the squeeze.
“That’s what happens when we rely on the outside for our products—it’s crazy,” Ortiz said.
CF Industries, a leading U.S. manufacturer and distributor of agricultural fertilizers, recently had to shut down its operations in the United Kingdom amid high natural gas costs and a reported $185 million quarterly net loss in revenues.
Hurricane Ida also forced the company to cease production at its ammonia plants in Louisiana.
CF Industries did not return a request for comment.
John Kempf, founder of Advancing Eco Agriculture, a plant nutrition and bio-stimulants company headquartered in Middlefield, Ohio, said in some instances fertilizer supplies are “almost non-existent.”
The “bigger issue,” he said, is that a majority of pesticides and herbicides used in agriculture in the U.S. are made offshore.
They, too, are subject to disruptions and dislocations in the logistical supply chain, he said.
Growing Back To Basics As a producer and supplier of biological and mineral nutrition products, Kempf said the company seeks to help farmers reduce their dependence on modern fertilizers and pesticides, improve efficiency, and lower costs.
“We believe that farmers have been overusing these products for quite some time” causing ecological damage, Kempf told The Epoch Times.
In the long term, Kempf said moving away from intensive use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides in agriculture “will force us to become better farmers.”
“We know that 60 percent of nitrogen that is used on the corn crops is not absorbed and goes down the river or it gets tied up in the soil,” he said.
Kempf said there is “only one model” that can alleviate the current shortages, which is to become less dependent on artificial synthetic fertilizers and more reliant on “regenerative models” to repair ecological damage caused by the overuse of chemicals.
“We have all the (tools) we need today to implement those models,” Kempf said.
Chit aint cheap
Food shortages. That will get the attention of Biden voters.
Brandon strikes again.
Let’s go, Brandon!
Somebody should tell the BIDEN MORONS THAT AMMONIA FERTILIZER IS MADE FROM NATURAL GAS!...............
That’s a good point. You would think that this administration produces more than enough crap to fertilize the fields
Infrastructure Czar Cuffy Meigs will sort it out. /s
Fertilize your lawn because next year grass is all we may have to eat.
W.D.C. and the MSM don’t seem to be running low.....
Truck down the bs in DC.
Brandon already has a solution to high fertilizer prices: he’ll send the contents of his diapers to farmers. It’s a green solution. Recycle, Reusable and all that bull crap.
They should send trucks to DC. The BS is piled 1 mile high inside the beltway.
Truckers are already reluctant to deliver to big cities. Many trucking companies pay a $250 bonus just to cross into NYC. It is going to get uglier when they have no or more pricey food to deliver.
PedoJoe: The store shelves are empty because Americans are eating too much food
I grow without outside fertilizers, but I worry about the farmers around me. They were already hurting from the supply shortages last year, and the rising feed costs this year.
England, Holland, Russia and China are no longer exporting fertilizer. And, since 1/2 of 3rd world agriculture relies upon imported fertilizer this means FAMINE is coming.
Next year’s harvest will be bad. The year after will be a disaster! 100 million more poor children will starve because of the Bidonidiots!
100 million will starve and it’s Already too late to stop it!
It requires lots of energy to create Ammonium Nitrate.
You can’t make it work with wind or solar.
I have family who farms corn and soy. It’s goi g to cost them $350,000 to prepare the fields for next year’s crop. They grow corn and soy. There is no market to sell other products so their hands are tied for alternatives.
They use a no till method of farming, and the leftover plant materials from harvest go back i to the ground. Additionally, they utilize pig manure. When they apply fertilizer, they apply it where the plant grows and not the entire field. These methods have saved a small fortune, and boosted their harvest. Still, it’s a crapshoot dependent on the weather and a fluctuating sales market in the end. The equipment is horribly expensive and you must learn how to maintain, diagnose, and repair your equipment.
This is my first year of exposure to big farming. It’s fascinating, all that goes in to it. I got to ride in the big tractors and combines and ask a million questions. If I were younger, I’d apply for a job working these fields but I don’t have the stamina for the damn long hours it takes to feed the nation. And in the end, you can end up broke. The bank gets paid first. Everyone and everything gets paid before you do. If there’s anything left over, then you get yours.
Higher prices don’t always translate to bigger profits, because the cost of doing business increases as well.
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