Posted on 03/25/2026 9:27:34 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
Spring planting season is starting across the northern hemisphere. But before seeds go into the ground, nutrients go into the soil. Typically nitrogen fertilizer.
"Right now, we're kind of ... we'll be in the thick of it," farmer Matt Ubel said from the cab of his huge green fertilizer spreader near Wheaton, Kansas. "Lot of nitrogen gets put on in the spring."
The high cost of fertilizer and other farming necessities pushed many row crop farmers into the red last year. Ubel says some were holding out for lower prices this spring, only to see the price of the most common nitrogen fertilizer, urea, spike close to 30% when Iran shut down shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, halting close to half the world's fertilizer trade.
"This probably threw some guys for a loop," said Ubel.
(Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...
I thought NPR wasn’t thought too highly of here. (I can’t tell what you’re point in posting this article was since you didn’t comment yourself on it.)
I’ve been posting about the fertilizer here for awhile and citing this source:
I bought a few, just a few shares in corn, wheat and soybean futures ETFs shortly after the war started.
There’s always cow crap. And isn’t urea just urine?
No, it is a petro chemical
It takes 200 lbs. of Nitrogen fertilizer to replace 3 tons of cow crap. Applying manure takes many more trips by tractor causing much more soil erosion.
The good news is the USA gets 90% of all its fertilizer from North America. But Brazil imports fertilizer from Russia and requires 3 times more per acre because they are farming such poor quality land.
The longer this disruption lasts, the more third world people are going to starve.
Family in Maryland use chicken poop, they grow corn and soy beans.
I wondered, for a minute, if having to eat Purina would awaken some of the fixed-income Israel 1st/America 2nd geezers on FR, but it won’t.
Those that aren’t trolls and change-agents are quasi-religionist victims of a chronic lifelong mind virus. They repeatedly return to their vomit pile and no amount of consequence (national bankruptcy, squandering American hegemony or even starvation) can cure it.
The only cure for their psychosis is death. War-whore boomers just need to die off already, but it’ll probably be too late for the remnant.
lol... “Just use cow or chicken s**t!”
Stop trying to make sense... these people are abject morons.
Jim Robinson would have zotted you for that last post.
Fascist Libertarian post bump.
Yeah except I was supporting FR and the Robinsons - to the tune of thousands - for nearly a decade before you ever showed up.
BTW nice posting history - ranting dunce. S**tmouth brain donors like you are exactly why FR is going broke.
“The longer this disruption lasts, the more third world people are going to starve.”
Brazil exports food to the US. Orange juice, coffee, soybeans, beef. Brazilians probably won’t starve, but food prices will go up, and we get more inflation.
Hey Wayne are you with Trump and America against Iran? Whose side you on?
With Trump, pro-war on Iran, but also pro-truth. There are risks, costs and possible bad outcomes here. Sticking your head in the sand isn’t helpful. If truth gives you anxiety, get offline.
That’s an excellent way to put it.
In truth, safety isn’t always safe. So, one must judge the relative risks and costs.
For sure, the biggest short term risks and costs in this dustup are not to the USA, but the long term risks of the Mullahs getting nukes, or even “only” much better military capacity, are staggering. Then, the merely (relatively) medium-bad scenarios are worse for us than anything likely to happen as fallout from the present difficulties.
It is interesting to consider where all this would be if the region was further along in geologic processes. The Persian Gulf is shrinking at a rapid clip due to sedimentation and geologic uplift, while the Red Sea is gradually getting wider and deeper.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.