02/27/08 Fertilizer Trouble

Fertilizer Trouble. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. There are rumblings in the ag industry about a possible shortage of fertilizer this year. The real question is&is it true. Lane County Oregon Extension agent Ross Penhallegon has been checking in with suppliers and producers in the area. PENHALLEGON: I just did a quick survey of two of the major fertilizer dealers in the South Valley and the first one said that they're having no problems at all at this point. They had a bunch on stock. The second one kind of said the same thing; they have enough to finish out the spring planting. Seems like I hear a big BUT in there. PENHALLEGON: However&then the big however hits. Nitrogen is running - it used to run about $400 a ton, it's now over $827 a ton and potash which we used to be giving away come the next month they are expecting another $80 a ton. I talked to people in the Midwest and Florida and everything and said they can't get phosphorus. They have hundred of thousands of acres and they don't have any rail cars with liquid phosphorus or phosphoric acid to do anything. And it does seem to vary from area to area across the U.S. Penhallegon says there are a lot of issues contributing. PENHALLEGON: And then kid of the bigger picture is at this point that they're currently worldwide is that there's a greater demand than the supply that there is and since a lot of this stuff unfortunately comes from corn suppliers plus the dollars weaker than it used to be the shippers aren't wanting to ship into a weak U.S. dollar where they quote  unquote don't make as much money. While there isn't officially a shortage there is cause for concern but according to Penhallegon, there is an upside. PENHALLEGON: As with everything, everything is skyrocketing. I had a conversation with a field man just a little bit ago and food's still dang cheap compared to everything else. Gas is skyrocketing, fertilizer is skyrocketing, stuff we do in producing food and dang, we're still giving it away for a fairly equitable price so we might need to rethink that. What's called the margin that which food is produced and that for which it is sold has become less and less and less and the farmer is getting less and less and so we need to make sure that a minimum of the 1.7% of the people producing all of the food in the United States continues to produce it or were in a world of hurt. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.