Have Fertilizer Concerns?

Do you have concerns about fertilizer? The U.S. Department of Agriculture wants to hear about them.

This is your Southeast Regional Ag News. I am Haylie Shipp on the Ag Information Network.

The Department of Agriculture did this week on Tuesday extended a comment deadline regarding their “Access to Fertilizer: Competition and Supply Chain Concerns” Federal Register notice. Published in the Federal Register this past March, the previous deadlines for comments were May 16th and then June 15th. The USDA has now extended that comment deadline another month. The new deadline is July 15th of this year.

Andy Green, USDA's Senior Advisor for Fair and Competitive Markets, says the new deadline allows "commenters to provide additional feedback regarding the role of capacity expansion and related strategies to directly enhance competition in the fertilizer market."

Through this effort, the USDA is seeking information on what obstacles exist to financing and developing new fertilizer capacity, expanding fertilizer manufacturing, and what other threats the fertilizer sector faces.

This all comes after, in March, the USDA did announce plans for a $250 million investment in grants to support additional fertilizer production for farmers to address rising costs and spur competition. Fertilizer prices have more than doubled in the past year.