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Fertilizer prices falling, but many farmers don’t see the savings

Some fertilizer prices are dropping, but a trade expert says many farmers are not seeing that lower price at home.

Josh Linville with Stone X tells Brownfield urea markets have gone down. “We are seeing some weakness, and a lot of that is due to a lack of demand globally. Everybody is kind of dragging their feet hoping for lower prices. Part of it has to do with the better supplies coming from Russia, coming from China, and European production restarting.”

Linville says the urea prices at New Orleans recently fell to $500 a ton.  He says that’s within $100 of the summer low and well below the $700 dollar prices seen in September. 

Linville says American farmers are not seeing much if any price drop at home because of North American logistics problems. “The problem is with the river situation, what we need are tremendous rain events up north, but it’s November, the second half of November. Most rain is going to come as ice and snow and that’s not going to help us until next spring.”

As for anhydrous ammonia, Linville says prices are lower now, but a warm weather application run can quickly spike the prices again.

Linville says farmers had good supplies of phosphorus and potash in most areas for fall application, but lower demand has kept prices falling since April.