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Farmer survey shows no pull back in fertilizer rates, corn acres despite high prices

Despite sky rocketing fertilizer prices, a recent survey found that many farmers won’t reduce rates or plant less corn in 2023.

Kevin McNew is the chief economist with Farmers Business Network. “We didn’t see a sizeable change. We saw some localized changes where farmers were pulling back, but much of that I attribute to drought impacts more so than the cost of fertilizer.  I think farmers, unfortunately, are getting comfortable with high fertilizer prices.”

FBN surveyed more than 1,000 farmers in its inaugural Fertilizer Price Transparency Report.

The survey showed than 17 percent would reduce fertilizer, while 9 percent plan to increase rates. And, he says, the nitrogen-based fertilizer market remains volatile and expects prices to continue to increase next year.

McNew tells Brownfield more wheat could be planted, but a sizeable shift in corn acres isn’t likely. “I think some of that is a result of the Northern Plains and Upper Midwest coming back pretty hard with corn next year because this last spring they had such problems with a with a wet planting season getting corn in the ground that I think are coming back pretty strong.”

He says any shift will be at a regional level. “We did see a little bit of a drop in corn acres in Michigan, Indiana, Delta and Southeast area, but overall I didn’t see widespread changes in corn acres that would lead to big shifts at the national level,” McNew says. “In the Delta, they are probably going to more wheat/beans double crop. In some cases, they are going to wheat or milo in the Southern and Central Plains areas.”

McNew says a shift to wheat acres is likely attributed to commodity prices and not to USDA’s double-cropping incentive.