This person monitors and provides independent reporting on input markets
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins is bringing back a previously cut position within her department.
While announcing multiple steps to support American fertilizer production and farmers on May 19, Rollins indicated her department is supporting a Senate recommendation to hire an inputs economist.
“Effective immediately we are already searching for that input economist that will focus entirely with a team on the cost of inputs so we can continue this high-level partnership with (Capitol) Hill to ensure we’re doing everything that we can for our farmers and ranchers,” she said.
The USDA previously staffed someone in this role within the Office of the Chief Economist but eliminated the position in 2025 as part of departmental restructuring.
The new hire’s responsibilities will include providing independent, consistent, and transparent reporting on fertilizer and other crop input markets.
The fertilizer industry supports the new crop input economist position.
The Fertilizer Institute, for example, advocated for such a role within the USDA to support stransparency.
“Improving access to timely, consistent, and reliable market information can help strengthen understanding of fertilizer and crop input markets across the agricultural economy, including the important distinction between domestic production capacity and overall market share in a globally traded fertilizer marketplace,” Corey Rosenbusch, president and CEO of TFI, said in a statement.
Farmers have voiced concern with consolidation and a lack of transparency in fertilizer markets.
“Over the past 40 years, fewer and fewer fertilizer firms serve the U.S. farmer due in no small part to industry mergers,” Trent Kubik, president of South Dakota Corn Growers Association, told the Senate Agriculture Committee. “By almost any measure, these are highly concentrated markets.”