Fertilizer Industry Chain Trends and Struggles

Fertilizer markets are crucial for crop production. As prices decrease, several factors could influence fertilizer trends. Josh Linville of StoneX explains fertilizer trends, the geopolitics affecting them, and how the market operates.

“It's it's been a struggle for everybody up and down the chain. Farmers, of course, are struggling with low grain prices. That has been the single biggest conversation out there, is that fertilizer prices are high, but the manufacturer, the suppliers, like, well, it's high before and they bought it. It's like, well, that's right, but corn was $4.56 a bushel, and today we're looking at something with a three in front of it, so the cash flow is significantly different, which is going to change how the farmer moves to the marketplace.”

Linville says that conflicts in other parts of the world could also disrupt the fertilizer market significantly globally.

“There are some things that still focus that I know things are bad today, but they can certainly get worse when you start to think about, you know, the Israel-Iran situation, the Russia-Ukraine situation, the China-Taiwan situation. And then you start to look at the fertilizers that are produced, produced around these regions, let's say, all of a sudden we just cut rush out of the mix. Well, that reduces the global supply, and suddenly you see price around the world go up. We would not be immune to that. Our prices would go up, or we'd run the risk of losing our tons.”

Once again, that is Josh Linville of StoneX.