Fertilizer has been the root of a lot of stress lately when it comes to farming.

The weather this year caused the spring application season to not go well which then led to an oversupply in the market says ADM Director of Sales Jake Niederer.

The weather was terrible, which created a little bit of oversupply of fertilizer, and ultimately led to decreasing. So, over the last couple of months have been a great buying opportunity.

And with the fall application season on its way, farmers are looking at what the P and K markets are going to look like. At the Farm Progress Show, Niederer spoke to farmers about whether or not it is the right time to start buying fall P and K.

Yes; in the futures market, we're starting to see a carry build in the marketplace a little bit but it's slightly there. But we're also seeing a decrease in inventory and availability. We've seen fewer imports coming into the market, which ultimately means prices will rise quickly as farmers all start to come to the market once harvest happens.

 

Hear more of what Jake Niederer has to say about fertilizer-buying strategies: 

In the last two years, farmers have seen fertilizer prices increase 400 percent but when you look at the greater, global picture, Kevin McNew, the Chief Economist for Farmers Business Network says that in Europe, fertilizer prices have skyrocketed 3,600 percent.

The rest of the world is so constrained in terms of not only the availability of nitrogen because Europe is the third largest producer of nitrogen fertilizer, so there will not be supply or availability. But even if there were the prices would be astronomically higher than US values.

This is because Russia is a major source of nitrogen gas.

McNew says that if you look at the big picture with these prices, we are probably going to see strong corn prices, despite the prices not looking so good for the 23-crop year.  He also adds that this is an opportunity to focus on how you are using nitrogen.

Learn more about what's going on in the fertilizer market from economist Kevin McNew:

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