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Some farmers in Southwest Ohio are experiencing phosphate shortages

As planting gets underway, some farmers in southwest Ohio are experiencing phosphate fertilizer shortages.

Tadd Nicholson is the executive director of the Ohio Corn and Wheat Growers Association.

“We started to receive some notices from growers in that area about outages of phosphate fertilizer just at the time when they were ready to go and had phosphate loads booked. They were not prepaid, but booked so they had expectations of (the inputs) being there. They got a call from suppliers and to their dismay they’re out of stock,” he says.  

He tells Brownfield it couldn’t have come at a worse time for growers.

“It’s disturbing because it’s not something you can delay a couple of weeks; you need to apply when you need to apply,” he says. “So, unexpected outages of phosphate this time of year is not welcome news.”

Nicholson says there are several contributing factors including flooding on the Mississippi River impacting fertilizer barges and the rush to get supplies because of the planting season. 

“These are river terminals,” he says. “The (retailers) down on the river and inland in southwest Ohio as well, found themselves unable to get supplies from their supplier,” he says. “Farmers typically apply at the same time. We know that there are some reasons why this time of year there is a big run on fertilizer. That could be part of it as well.”

The main issue, he says, is that the market share held by one major American fertilizer company and the tariffs in place on phosphorous imports from other countries.

Ohio Corn and Wheat Growers Association, through its affiliation with the National Corn Growers Association, is part of an appeal to overturn the tariffs.  

“There’s a pending decision out there and we’re hoping that they would overturn or reverse the International Trade Commission’s granting of that tariff. It’s not a small tariff…it’s about 19 or 20 percent increase on imported phosphate from Morocco,” he says. “Our request is for the Biden administration to step in, use whatever it can do to overturn this tariff because up until now it’s been an issue with price. But now it also has a supply issue because here we are in the heat of planting season, ready to go, and the retailers that are serving farmers in Ohio don’t have anyone else to call but one company. That’s a problem. we need to have competition in that marketplace and the competition came from Morocco and we want that back.”

In 2021, the International Trade Commission voted to begin imposing tariffs on imported fertilizers from Morocco. The National Corn Growers Associaiton and five other national groups filed a joint brief in the U.S. Court of International Trade to overturn the decision.

Visit ohiocornandwheat.org or ncga.com for more information.