The US Has a Fertilizer Deficit

The US remains in a deficit when it comes to fertilizer capacity, though manufacturers and distributors have front loaded supplies of certain nutrients into the domestic markets. Sam Taylor Farm Input Analyst with Robobank on current fertilizer availability and what it means for US producers,

“If you look at the cumulative imports of DAP into the US market, phosphate, most important phosphate, it is an interesting chart from its like divergence from the norm. In that from April 1, it basically flat lines. So there was near enough no DAP coming into the US market, up until the data we've got available, which is in November, it was almost impossible for distributors and retailers to actually build up on inventory, on that kind of context”

While some fertilizer tariffs have been paused to improve supply flow, importers and distributors still face limited ability to build inventory

“If it's a tight global market with the countervailing duties and a deficit region such as India not getting their supply, that residual supply of Saudi Arabia that was making up the volumes lost from Morocco and Russia, they just decided to supply the west coast of India. So there's not necessarily the global availability to backfill that.”

President Donald Trump has announced he is invoking the Defense Production Act to boost US manufacturing of glyphosate and phosphorus, calling the herbicide essential to national security and modern agriculture.