Agriculture secretary: Rising fertilizer prices 'shouldn't be too disruptive' for US farmers |
Agriculture secretary: Rising fertilizer prices ‘shouldn’t be too disruptive’ for US farmers
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said Wednesday that increased fertilizer prices amid the war with Iran will not impact the majority of U.S. farmers.
Rollins told host Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria” that 80 percent of farmers “had already purchased their fertilizer by last year, in preparation for the spring planting season.”
The secretary noted that indicates there “shouldn’t be much disruption” from the increase in fertilizer costs sparked by Iran restricting shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
Since the U.S. and Israel began striking Iran on Feb. 28, the Iranian military has warned ships from the U.S., Israel and allies against traveling through the Strait of Hormuz. Just five vessels have gone through the passageway over the past 24 hours, down significantly from the normal daily average of 60 ships, according to hormuzstraitmonitor.com.
One-third of global seaborne trade in fertilizers passed through the strait in 2024, more than two-thirds of which was the key ingredient of urea, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
As of Wednesday, prices for six of the eight major fertilizers were higher relative to last month, according to sellers surveyed by DTN. UAN28 was 15 percent more expensive than February, while urea, up to an average price of $677 per ton, was 11 percent higher than a month ago.
For the 20 percent of U.S. farmers directly impacted by those increases, Rollins touted multiple moves the Trump administration has made to address them. She noted that the administration “opened up lines from Venezuela,” referring to a March 13 notice from the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control that eased restrictions on petrochemical products, including fertilizer products and fertilizer precursor chemicals, imported from the South American country.
Last Wednesday, the administration also issued a 60-day waiver of the Jones Act — a 100-year-old law that requires shipping between U.S. ports to be conducted by U.S.-flagged ships.
That move came in response to not just higher fertilizer prices, but the increase in oil prices globally as a result of Iran halting shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. The energy shock has led to increased prices at the pump for Americans, as the national average price of a gallon of regular gas surpassed $3.98 on Wednesday, more than $1 higher than a month ago, according to AAA.
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