Urea barges in New Orleans traded roughly US$50-$80 per short ton, or 11 to 17 per cent higher, on March 2 compared to Feb. 28, according to Argus Media.

The conflict presents a “major risk” to North American urea supplies ahead of spring planting, according to an analysis published on the Argus website.

A vessel loading on Monday in the Middle East would arrive in the United States by mid-April. March and April are the largest months for urea imports.

“If shipments from the Middle East are delayed or disrupted, the U.S. would lose a critical source of urea, likely crunching supply and laying the groundwork for upward price volatility,” Argus analyst Calder Jett said in his article.

“Middle Eastern producers of urea so far have suspended offers and are grappling with shipping complications in the Strait of Hormuz.”

WHY IT MATTERS: This is the time of year when farmers are contemplating spring fertilizer purchases.

StoneX fertilizer analyst Josh Linville said the conflict couldn’t come at a worse time for North American farmers, who are gearing up for spring.

Commercial shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has started to “grind to a halt.” Vessel owners do not want to put their ships and crews in harm’s way.

The market impact will depend on how long the strait is shut down, he said in a YouTube video on the subject.

U.S. president Donald Trump has stated that U.S. military operations in Iran are likely to last at least one month.

“The unfortunate part is that means you have locked in three of your top 10 global urea exporters and three of your top 10 global anhydrous exporters,” said Linville.

Saudi Arabia is also a major exporter of phosphate fertilizer.

The phosphate market was already suffering from the lack of Chinese exports. The world’s largest exporter of the product said it will not be shipping any product until August 2026.

The urea market has also had problems with supply keeping up to rising demand due to a lack of Chinese exports and the European Union functioning at about 75 per cent of its normal operating rate.

“We have gotten to the point where we don’t have any excess supplies anymore,” said Linville.

Iran and Saudi Arabia don’t have any alternatives to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

“For those manufacturers that rely on the Persian Gulf to get out to the rest of the world, if you shut down that narrow body of water, you’re stuck,” he said.

Dennis Voznesenski, agricultural economist with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, reports that three freight vessels from the U.S. and United Kingdom have already been struck in the Strait of Hormuz.

He noted in a post on X that one-third of global urea trade passes through the strait, according to Kpler.

The hostilities will also disrupt natural gas shipments through the strait, which could lead to higher fertilizer production costs.

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Shares fell more than two per cent in extended trading.

The Tampa, Florida-based fertilizer producer warned in January that an unusually sharp decline in North American fertilizer demand during the quarter would pressure sales and cash flow.

Demand for fertilizers has been under pressure as farmers cut nutrient use amid tight budgets, while an early onset of winter shortened the application window.

Sales volumes in the Phosphates segment fell to 1.3 million tonnes from 1.6 million tonnes a year earlier, the company said.

Global shipments could reach record levels

Phosphate markets have tightened as Chinese exports remain largely absent after Beijing extended its phosphate export restrictions, Mosaic said, adding that it expects restrictions to stay in place through at least the first half of the year.

“Like phosphate, potash prices have shifted higher, and current expectations suggest global shipments could reach record levels in 2026,” Mosaic added.

The company said it expects full-year phosphate production volumes to be at or above 7 million tonnes and potash production volumes to be about 9 million tonnes.

Mosaic forecast first-quarter phosphate sales volumes of 1.7 million to 1.9 million tonnes and potash sales volumes of 2.0 million to 2.2 million tonnes.

It also forecast capital spending of about $1.5 billion (C$2.06 billion) for the year.

The company reported adjusted earnings of 22 cents per share for the quarter ended December 31, compared with analysts’ average estimate of 47cents per share, according to data compiled by LSEG.

— Reporting by Katha Kalia and Sumit Saha in Bengaluru

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Declining crop prices, weakening demand and heightened geopolitical tensions have squeezed profitability across the agricultural supply chain, as the sector navigated a challenging end to 2025.

That uncertainty weighed on fertilizer purchases and on producers facing tight nitrogen supplies and shifting global trade flows.

Crop nutrients sales and margin decreased in the fourth quarter due to lower sales volumes from a weather-shortened fall application window in the U.S. and reduced demand for phosphate, the company said.

Quarterly sales at the crop nutrients segment stood at $1.51 billion (C$2.07 billion), compared to $1.53 billion last year

The Saskatoon, Canada-based firm posted an adjusted profit of 83 cents per share for the three months ended December 31, compared with analysts’ average estimate of 95 cents, according to data compiled by LSEG.

— Reporting by Sumit Saha in Bengaluru

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Yield loss isn’t the real risk, says Chris Holzapfel, senior soil scientist with the Indian Head Agricultural Research Foundation (IHARF). More accurately, it’s about stand establishment, so “safe” phosphorus rates are less about protecting yield than about managing stand loss. The tipping point of that trade-off between nutrient and risk to the stand varies from field to field.

WHY IT MATTERS: With input costs putting pressure on slim profit margins, farmers want to know that the fertilizer decisions they make for the coming spring have the best chance of paying for themselves.

Holzapfel’s work, outlined at the 2025 Manitoba Agronomists Conference in December, spans three Saskatchewan sites (Scott, Indian Head and Melfort) and several trial results. It found that canola didn’t yield less with seed-placed phosphorus, but there could be fewer plants. Depending on soil, moisture and fertilizer blend, there could be much fewer plants.

Canola, however, has a knack for filling in the gaps of a lean plant stand.

Counting up yield

More than a third of sites showed no yield response to phosphorus at all, despite less than impressive soil test phosphate. Most places went into the trial with moderate soil test levels, roughly 15 to 20 parts per million of phosphorus. Where yield responses did occur, they varied in size and consistency.

Some site-years showed a modest, fairly linear yield response to added phosphorus. Others did not respond at all, even where soil test phosphorus was relatively low.

“In some cases the yield response was pretty strong. In some places it was small,” said Holzapfel. “In some cases it wasn’t there at all, but never negative.”

The lesson, says Holzapfel, is that phosphorus doesn’t always behave predictably, and low soil test values don’t guarantee a yield response in a given year.

But one thing was true across all sites: there was no negative yield impact when comparing unfertilized checks to fertilized treatments.

The type of phosphorus also yielded only a few bushels to the acre difference, suggesting source mattered less than placement and overall fertility strategy. Melfort was one exception. There, pure struvite performed poorly over two site-years. Blends did better.

Holzapfel couldn’t say exactly why the Melfort data stood out, but it’s another reminder that local conditions can override expectations.

“I don’t really know what it is about this site,” he said

Stand loss rises with rate

When emergence data was averaged across all sites, higher seed-placed phosphorus rates were generally linked with modest declines in plant stand density. Differences among fertilizer forms existed, but they were smaller than differences driven by rate and site conditions.

Some phosphorus sources appeared gentler on emergence when seed-placed, but that didn’t automatically translate into yield advantages. Canola compensates by branching and filling in the canopy later in the season.

That’s an important distinction, conference attendees heard. Establishment and yield don’t always move together.

Soil and location matter

Trials at all three sites also highlighted just how sensitive outcomes can be to soil texture, pH, organic matter and moisture.

At Indian Head — a higher pH site with more moderate organic matter — no emergence issues were observed with side-banded phosphorus across all tested rates. Seed-placed phosphorus reduced plant counts as rates increased, but stands generally started strong and tolerated the stress better than at other locations.

Results from Scott told a different story. Plant populations were lower to begin with, and seed-placed fertilizer, especially when ammonium sulphate was included, appeared to have an impact.

“As soon as they threw that ammonium sulphate into the seed row, right off the bat they lost a fair number of plants,” he said.

Those plots showed the kind of damage Holzapfel would expect from too many ammonium salts concentrated in the seed row, although he could not say for certain that salt stress was fully to blame.

Where is the real seed risk?

A farm’s acceptable risk to seed-placed phosphorus depends on field conditions and management goals, attendees heard. Farmers will want to weigh factors like:

• soil texture and moisture,
• pH and organic matter,
• fertilizer form,
• whether other products, like sulphur, are included in the seed row, and
• how much stand loss a grower can tolerate.

Work cited by Holzapfel supports a conservative approach: Side-banding is still the most reliable way to apply higher phosphorus rates without risking emergence.

Seed placement can work at modest rates under the right conditions, but the margin for error is narrower, especially on sensitive soils or in dry springs.

Holzapfel added that farmers should be cautious of marketing campaigns promising a silver bullet when it comes to phosphorus. While newer products may offer handling or seed-safety advantages, long-term fertility still comes down to applying enough phosphorus, in a safe way, to maintain or build soil fertility.

“Remember, you are not only fertilizing the crop, but also the soil.” he said.

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It plans to invest “substantial capital” to bring the mine back into production, the company said in a statement.

The acquisition includes a processing plant in Matheson, Ontario, and various other mineral properties in the province. Infracon chief executive officer Geoff Hampson will head the operation through a subsidiary company called KAP Minerals.

Agrium closed the open-pit mine around 2013, according to a report in Northern Ontario Business. At the time, Agrium said the mine would be nearing depletion.

Infracon Construction said KAP Minerals plans to commercialize the Apatite deposit, a high-quality phosphate deposit in the Cargill Township Carbonatite Complex.

The company said it plans to work with Taykwa Tagamou Nation to establish a benefits agreement to provide employment and contracting opportunities for First Nation-owned businesses in the region.

Earlier this year, Fox River Resources Corp proposed the Martison Phosphate Project northeast of Hearst, Ontario.

Canada depends on imports of phosphorus to meet domestic need. Western Canada consumes about 892,000 tonnes of actual phosphorus per year, while Eastern Canada consumes about 202,000 tones of actual phosphorus, according to a 2022 report from the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute (CAPI).

In that report, CAPI said the limited supplies and suppliers of phosphate fertilizers are “increasingly perceived as a source of vulnerability in a more volatile world.”

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Milton, which led to at least 17 reported deaths, added to piles of debris following Hurricane Helene.

Mosaic said it will provide an update on production losses from Milton and Helene as recovery efforts progress. Early assessments show limited damage to its facilities and products in warehouses, according to a company statement. It added that power has been restored to all facilities.

Mosaic said on Friday that water supporting its storage of a waste byproduct from fertilizer manufacturing at a facility in Riverview, Florida, probably made its way into Tampa Bay following a downpour from Milton. The industrial byproduct, phosphogypsum, is known to emit radon, a cancer-causing radioactive gas.

The company said on Monday that “no significant environmental impacts occurred” due to the recent storms.

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“There has a been a spike in the market down at the Gulf, so that eventually translates to maybe higher prices here. We’ll see how long it sticks around.” Burnett said.

“I don’t think it sticks around that long.”

Hurricane Milton is expected to hit Florida’s west coast late Oct. 9, according to a U.S. National Weather Service bulletin. Central and southwestern Florida, including Tampa, are expecting “life threatening storm surge, damaging winds, and flooding rains.”

This, after Hurricane Helene hit the state in late September.

Gulf urea prices have risen by seven or eight per cent this month and peaked on Oct. 4, said Burnett.

Global urea prices rose in recent days, which some have blamed on conflict between Iran and Israel, Josh Linville, vice president of fertilizer at StoneX, told the AgriTalk podcast on Monday.

However, urea inventories were already tight based on “production hiccups” around the world, he said.

“Iran attacking Israel was not the thing that caused it. It was just the trigger that allowed the market to come together and say we now need to move higher because the supply issue is very, very real,” Linville said.

Linville was more concerned about phosphate.

Florida has several phosphate mines in the path of the hurricane. As much as 42 per cent of U.S. ammonium phosphate, 32 per cent of U.S. phosphate rock, and half of U.S. wet-processed phosphoric acid production capacity is located near Tampa Bay. About 40 per cent of all U.S. phosphate fertilizer exports and 27 per cent of total fertilizer exports go through Port Tampa Bay.

Fertilizer maker Mosaic said today it has idled Florida operations. The company, which mines phosphate rock in the state and produces about three-quarters of North America’s phosphate fertilizers, said last week that a facility in Riverview, Florida, was offline because of a storm surge from Helene.

On X, Linville said he was less concerned about phosphate facility damage than he was about electrical infrastructure damage and about workers who might need to care for friends and family before returning to work.

The Gulf region also has many port loading facilities for phosphate, Burnett said. If those are damaged, that could cause shipping delays of the raw material from the mines.

However, he pointed out that Canadian farmers are likely in no hurry to purchase phosphate at this time of year.

“So really the price of mono and diammonium phosphate are irrelevant right now, unless you’re buying for the spring,” he said.

However, farmers are likely frustrated with the price of fertilizer in general, Burnett said. Crop prices have dropped 20 to 30 per cent over the last year while fertilizer prices have remained fairly level.

“I would say that farmers are looking at next year’s cropping rotation, relatively expensive fertilizer compared to the price of the crops that they’re growing and will probably look to minimize nitrogen or try to move to more pulse crops,” Burnett said.

“I think we’re going to see that in a number of areas, not just fertilizer,” he added.

—With files from Reuters

—Updated: added additional information about Florida phosphate production, facility closures.

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According to Stephen Case, chief executive officer and president of Fox River Resources, Canada has become completely reliant on phosphate sourced from other countries like the U.S., Russia and Morocco. He’s advocating to have the Martison Phosphate Project developed at a site northeast of Hearst, Ont. to alleviate Canadian reliance on phosphate from those other jurisdictions.

Dating back to the early 2000s, Canada sourced its own phosphate, most of which came from Redwater, Alta. At the turn of the century, that plant could generate up to 700,000 tonnes of monoammonium phosphate (MAP) per year, part of a near one-million tonne market for MAP across Western Canada. Through the years, it produced under the names Agrium, Sherritt Gordon and Veridian, among others. But with the formation of Nutrien, the phosphoric acid plant was converted to an ammonium-sulphate (AMS) production facility.

Since the mid-2010s, Canadian phosphate usage has pushed the industry into complete dependence on the U.S. and other imports. With the onset of the war in Ukraine, Canadian farmers were forced to pay higher short-term prices for phosphate from that part of the world.

“We’re now a two-million tonne market and two things have happened in the past 20 years,” says Case. “Agrium had a fixed number of tonnes they would produce per year, but the western Canadian market and Ontario’s continued to grow and they have essentially doubled consumption in the past 10 years.”

At the same time, U.S. supply has been declining since the early 1990s, from a high of about 48 million tonnes in 1991 to a little under 20 million in 2022. There is the possibility that Nutrien’s White Springs, Florida facility will close later this decade or earlier, due to a lack of phosphate reserves. That plant has produced 500,000 tonnes of phosphoric acid, but its closure will only worsen the North American shortfall of phosphate.

A solution

Case’s bid is a two-pronged approach. First, get phosphate on the 2024 Critical Mineral List (CML), a move which would help get the Martison Phosphate Project up and running. Projects like Martison require billions of dollars to build and it will need access to government support that comes with being on the critical mineral list.

“It accesses infrastructure funding, tax credits and possibly government guarantees,” says Case. “The federal government’s also involved in streamlining the permitting process to reduce the timelines for critical minerals. It’s all of those things that make it easier to get this developed — and it should be on the list — potash is, and clearly, if you look at the criteria for critical minerals, one of the aspects is food security.”

Getting phosphate on the CML can also affect the level of infrastructure support with Indigenous participation, a jump to 75 per cent compared to 50 per cent for non-Indigenous interests.

One key strategic advantage of the Martison Phosphate Project is that it originates from igneous rock versus sedimentary sources which contain higher levels of cadmium. Within the last 10 years, cadmium has become a trade issue among EU importers of cereals and other foods. Again, with increased demand for production of crops across the country, Case says it’s counterproductive to apply lesser-quality phosphate to farmland when there is a better, made-in-Canada solution.

What’s needed is the drive to get it into production.

Case also says the focus on lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries for the electric vehicle market could divert attention from food and fertilizer.

The size of the Martison Phosphate Project is unknown at this time and although there may be enough ore to fill both markets, the two are definite competitors.

“Part of what we’re talking about is predicated on the fact that the U.S. is running out of rock and the rock they do have is of poor quality,” adds Case.

“If we don’t do something about this, we’re going to be paying more for something we shouldn’t be.”

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Samuel Taylor, a New York City-based farm inputs analyst for RaboResearch Food and AgriBusiness, delivered a presentation on the fertilizer market during the firm’s Fall Harvest Outlook webinar on Oct. 25.

Taylor presented a fertilizer “affordability index” which is measured using global fertilizer prices against global crop prices with a baseline of zero. Last September, the value was 0.01, down from around 0.25 in July. By comparison, the index had fallen to minus 0.65 in Jan. 2022, its lowest value since the Great Recession of 2008. Despite this, the index, and the worldwide affordability of fertilizers, are expected to improve into July 2024.

Separated by fertilizer type, potash had the best affordability index value at 0.32 (historical average at 0.11) in September, followed by phosphates at 0.07 (average at 0.11) and nitrogen at minus 0.19 (average at minus 0.04). Taylor predicted global nitrogen prices to increase by more than five per cent, while global prices for potash and phosphates will remain virtually unchanged.

RaboResearch Food and AgriBusiness also estimated a three per cent year-by-year increase in global fertilizer usage in 2023 and further projected a five per cent rise in 2024.

“Since (the Russian invasion of Ukraine), we’ve seen a rationalization towards fundamentals. A lot of the price action was built on timing and also capacity of supply and demand,” Taylor explained. “There’s a little bit of clarity there and a little bit more re-establishment of supply chains.”

In North America, Taylor added that year-by-year, prices for ammonia will be down 50 per cent, potash retreating by 44 per cent and phosphates pulling back by more than 10 per cent. In addition, prices for herbicides will be cut 50 per cent, fungicides 40 per cent and insecticides 25 per cent.

“From a cost-structure standpoint, there are some positive elements that you can point to,” he said.

However, Taylor warned the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict could cause additional issues. In 2021, Israel produced 3.96 million tonnes of potash and 1.07 million tonnes of phosphates — seven and two per cent of global market share, respectively.

“As far as we’re aware, (Israel is) functioning as normal,” Taylor added. “However, within the context of quite a large mobilization, there is the risk in the future that there could be some disruptions to logistics, to manufacturing. But there is nothing to report on (now).”

— Adam Peleshaty reports for MarketsFarm from Stonewall, Man.

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Although prices of fertilizers such as phosphates and potash decreased during the reported quarter, it did not boost demand as farmers waited for pricing trends to stabilize. Higher prices caused by a supply crisis due to sanctions on Russia and Belarus had curbed demand last year.

Mosaic, the world’s largest producer of finished phosphate products, saw a 5.9 per cent rise in sales volumes of phosphates and a 5.6 per cent increase in sales volumes of potash from last year.

The Tampa-based company reported earnings of $1.14 per share, excluding items, for the three months ended March 31, compared with analysts’ estimate of $1.29 per share, according to Refinitiv data (all figures US$).

— Reporting for Reuters by Arshreet Singh.

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