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Brazilian farmers, suppliers watching Canadian rail talks

A Canadian-based consultant for Brazil Potash Corporation says Brazilian farmers and suppliers are closely watching the labor discussions at the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific Kansas City railroads.

William Steers says, “Canada’s exports depend upon two rail systems. Close those two rail systems and it’s really a global tragedy.”

Steers tells Brownfield much of the potash used on Brazilian crops comes from Canada, so a prolonged Canadian rail strike would impact Brazilian crops. “If it had gone on for a period of longer than two weeks, you’d have all sorts of logistical nightmares tied into that. It takes something like 110 days to go from Saskatoon to the interior of Brazil.”

Canada, Russia, China, and Belarus are the top four potash producers.  Steers says going without fertilizer is not an option for most Brazilian farmers. “One of the characteristics of Brazil, unlike many parts of the United States, are very depleated soils and highly acidic soils, and so, they really are among the largest consumers per hectare or acre of fertilizers.”

Steers says Brazil is more dependent on crop inputs than most countries, and they are still developing domestic sources of N, P, and K. “Brazil has announced new programs for urea, development of new programs for phosphates or aggressively looking for different phosphate deposits.” He says Brazilian farmers also consume a lot of lime because of the acidic soils.

Steers says with regional flooding, drought, and the possibility of not getting fertilizer inputs, it creates problems for Brazilian farmers and for world food security.