SFP now marketing around the world

Farm and Ranch March 19, 2009 SFP, Specialty Fertilizer Products, began marketing its phosphate fertilizer enhancing product Avail in the northwest about four years ago. Dave Schwartz, National Products Manager for SFP, says the market has grown steadily. Schwartz: "Now we are marketing all over the U.S. based on a lot of the early information we received out of the Pacific Northwest. And Simplot, our distributor partner out there has done a lot of research that has been very beneficial to us in growing our markets throughout the U.S. Now we are in about seven other foreign countries. It all has just started in the last 12 months." Schwartz says Avail prevents phosphate from being tied up in the soil so that instead of just getting about 25 percent of the phosphate from a regular application, your getting 75 to 90 percent phosphate availability. Schwartz says high fertilizer prices turned farmers to companies like SFP. Schwartz: "To help them increase their efficiency on that fertilizer dollar. You know when the fertilizer prices have tripled in a lot of cases, that is money going out the back door and you have to figure out ways to maximize the dollar you spend. That's where Avail fits in." SFP has a product for nitrogen too, NutriSphere-N for urea or liquid nitrogen solutions. Schwartz: "We can actually reduce the amount of nitrogen that the grower needs to use by about 20%. In a lot of our study work we have some people cutting it even more." By the way if you are a NASCAR fan, SFP is helping sponsor driver Peyton Sellers in car 77 in the Nationwide Series. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.