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Minnesota farmer not expecting immediate price impact from fertilizer tariff ruling
A leader with the Minnesota Corn Growers Association does not expect Monday’s ruling on fertilizer tariffs to have an immediate impact on prices.
Richard Syverson, who farms in west-central Minnesota and serves as first vice president of MCGA, says most ag retailers already have fall fertilizer inventories in the warehouse.
“And given that this is UAN, which is more an in-season kind of product, I wouldn’t expect to see this particular ruling have much of an affect until maybe next spring.”
The U.S. International Trade Commission ruled Monday it will not impose tariffs on nitrogen fertilizers imported from Russia and Trinidad and Tobago. The ITC’s decision came after CF Industries filed a petition late last year to have the commission place tariffs on urea ammonium nitrate.
He tells Brownfield this is normally a time when farmers would be pricing fall fertilizer applications and inquiring about P and K.
“I think we’re kind of still shell-shocked from the increases we saw this spring, as well as the volatility we’re seeing in the grain markets right now.”
Syverson says when corn was $7.50 or $8 a bushel, he could afford to pay a hefty price for fertilizer. But at $6 corn, he says “the economics change dramatically.”
