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Both US and Canadian farmers rely upon fertilizer from

across

the border

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Farmers are already grappling with high costs and low

prices

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Potash prices up nearly 20% this year ahead of US tariffs

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Phosphate prices to surge more on retaliatory Canadian

levies

By Ed White

WINNIPEG, Manitoba, March 6 (Reuters) - With only weeks

until spring planting on both sides of the border gets underway,

Canadian and U.S. farmers, already facing low grain prices, are

bracing for another economic blow: even bigger fertilizer bills

amid a North American trade war.

Some farming supply costs already turned sharply higher due

to trade tensions between the U.S. and Canada. After threatening

tariffs for months, U.S. President Donald Trump enacted 25%

duties on most Canadian products on Tuesday before announcing a

one-month reprieve on some goods, including fertilizers, on

Thursday. Canada said on Thursday it will delay a planned second

wave of retaliatory tariffs until April 2.

Many U.S. farmers need to add potassium to their soils,

so they use potash fertilizer - much of which comes from the

Canadian province of Saskatchewan. Canadian farmers in turn

often need to add phosphorus to their soils, so they buy

phosphate - much of which comes from Florida.

Saskatchewan farmer Scott Hepworth, who has already

been paying high prices for the U.S. phosphate fertilizer he

uses to help his canola and wheat fields flourish, now fears

prices could spike more due to the trade war.

"When will this end? How bad will this get?" said

Hepworth, as he gathered with other farmers at the Canadian

Crops Convention on March 5.

Fertilizer is most farmers' biggest input cost. In 2024, the

U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated that 22% of total corn

production costs come from fertilizer, and that includes labor,

machinery and overhead expenses.

The price of potash has risen from $303 per short ton on

January 3 to $348 on February 28 ahead of the tariffs.

"Potash has seen price strength in all the confusion (and)

fear of the tariffs," said fertilizer analyst Josh Linville of

StoneX ( SNEX ). "There were strong fundamental reasons for potash prices

to rise, but it was the tariff fears that eventually caught up

with it."

Phosphate prices are harder to estimate but have surged,

analysts said, since hurricanes hit the Florida mines and

facilities that make the product. Prices in Canada could rise if

further Canadian retaliatory tariffs are imposed.

BIGGER FERTILIZER BILLS

The U.S. imports 90% of the potash its farmers use, with 80%

of those imports coming from nearby Canada, and it cannot

replace that with domestic production.

"Full pass-through of the 25% tariff could increase prices

by more than $100 per ton for (potash) supplies sourced from

Canada," said a February 4 analysis by a team from the

University of Illinois and Ohio State University.

Farmers only make money on the difference between what they

pay to grow a crop and what they can sell it for, so increasing

costs by $100 per ton would be a major hit on farmer incomes.

While Canada is not the only potash supplier to the U.S., it

is the closest. Russia and Belarus are the other major players,

but they have been affected by the war in Ukraine, with

sanctions and port bans hurting those countries' ability to

export product.

Canada imports phosphate from the U.S., with other sources

like Morocco distant and difficult to receive product from. If

Canada imposes tariffs on U.S. phosphate, that would raise

prices for Canadian importers and farmers.

Fertilizer companies from Canada rushed to get potash

supplies to U.S. wholesalers before the tariffs were imposed, so

U.S. farmers should have sufficient supply for early spring

planting, some analysts say. But they will have to pay the

retailers higher prices.

"The fertilizer industry has known this is coming since

November, so they've been prepared, and now they're just bracing

to see how this plays out," said analyst Mark Milam of ICIS, a

commodity analytics firm.

One fertilizer company executive warned U.S. farmers should

be prepared for fertilizer prices to jump as much as 25%.

"We believe that the cost of tariffs will be passed on to

the U.S. farmer," Ken Seitz, the president and CEO of Nutrien ( NTR )

, said at the BMO Global Metals, Mining and Critical

Minerals Conference on February 25.