Fertilizer Prices To Drop In Summer

Mar 05, 2012

Producers can expect lower fertilizer prices later this year, but the president and senior economist with NPK Fertilizer Advisory Services says prices will move higher during seeding.

"We're expecting a bump in prices as we go into what is the heaviest use period of the year, but once we get through that we expect prices to come under pressure and drop down through the summer," says David Asbridge. "It's a good possibility that 2013 prices could be even lower than they are now."

"When you have high prices you tend to bring more production capacity on, and that's what we're seeing," he says. "We're seeing a lot of phosphate expansion come on in Saudi Arabia. Potash capacity is growing here in Canada, as well as in Russia. So we're looking at situation where there's a lot of capacity coming on stream."

"We're looking at prices across the board - nitrogen, phosphate and potash - to go down this summer," he says.

But before that, Asbridge says prices will peak in spring. He says producers and retailers have been reluctant to buy fertilizer this winter.

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Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.