Fertilizer cost increase creates challenge for farmers
Fertilizer cost increase creates challenge for farmers
By Kevin Killough
Powell Tribune
Via Wyoming News Exchange
POWELL — Farmers are in for a tough year, and that’s assuming the weather cooperates. Otherwise, it could be a terrible year.
Fertilizer prices are soaring, doubling in some cases, over what they were last year. That’s on top of increased chemical and fuel prices.
David Northrup, who farms in the Willwood area south of Powell, said he might spend around $200 to fertilize an acre in past years. That’s going to be around $400 this year.
While inflation is sending prices up for a lot of goods, the situation with fertilizer prices is being exacerbated by world events. In September, China banned phosphate exports until at least June. U.S. farmers don’t get a lot of their fertilizer from China, but the country represents 30% of the world trade. That means buyers around the world are going to be looking elsewhere for fertilizer, tapping into the supplies American farmers use.
Russia recently imposed export restrictions on some of its fertilizers, and it is a primary source country for European farmers. The nation’s conflict with Ukraine could further disrupt supplies, meaning a lot of farmers are gobbling up a shrinking supply of fertilizers.
Besides input prices, farmers in the Big Horn Basin must balance a lot of management concerns. While production will be more expensive this year, producers don’t really have the option to cut back on how much they produce; they just produce the same with less profit.
“You got to put a crop in the ground. It’s just our nets [net income] are going to go down,” said Ric Rodriguez, who farms on Heart Mountain. “You hope to make a profit.”
Rodriguez said he put down fertilizer on his sugar beet fields around the first of the year.
“I’ve never done that in my entire career; I was just trying to catch the fertilizer prices where they’re at, because they don’t know where they’re going to end up,” he said.
Jeremiah Vardiman, agriculture and horticulture extension educator for the University of Wyoming Extension, said fertilizer prices could triple, but for now they’re holding at double.
Whatever farmers face this season, Vardiman said it will be somewhat offset by last year, when weather and inputs worked well for the farmer’s bottom line.
“You always have to hope the good years will balance out the bad years,” he said.
Vardiman agreed that farmers likely won’t cut back on production in response to rising fertilizer prices. They might cut back on how much fertilizer they use, but that option has limitations, as it will hurt yields.
He said farmers are more likely to cut costs in other areas, such as labor, equipment, and repairs.
Some crops require less fertilizer, such as dry beans, but Vardiman said switching crops is not always an option: Crop rotations and other farm management concerns will have a bigger say on what crops go in the ground than fertilizer prices.
Ryan Nelson, an agronomist with the Big Horn Cooperative, said commodity prices are higher, which will help offset some of the costs of the higher inputs.
Nelson said the coop is managing to keep farmers supplied, though “logistically it’s been tough,” as is the case with many products.
“You never know what can happen,” Nelson said. “It’s taken more time and planning to make sure we have those products. Our focus is to help our farmers.”
Rodriguez said other chemicals are in short supply as well: China produces 60% of the global market of the herbicide glyphosate, and farmers were warned of shortages last fall. Where supplies run short, prices run high.
It’s too early to know for sure how irrigation supplies will play out. Buffalo Bill Reservoir, which feeds much of the canal systems around Powell, has enough capacity currently. How the snowpack pans out in the next couple months will determine what storage will look like when this year’s season is done.
All things considered, unless there’s a major weather event harming crops, Rodriguez said there’s still profit to be made in Big Horn Basin agriculture this season.
“Those are all things we can’t project,” he said. “You got to project for the good and keep your fingers crossed.”
Nelson said this year’s challenges are just part of working in the agriculture industry. There is so much you can’t control, and farmers will just muddle through.
“A farmer will always have to work with what they’re given,” the agronomist said.
This story was published on Feb. 10.