Agriculture secretary: Rising fertilizer prices ‘shouldn’t be too disruptive’ for US farmers
https://thehill.com/business/5800554-fertilizer-prices-us-farmers/?fbclid=IwdGRjcAQxM29jbGNrBDEzbGV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkDDM1MDY4NTUzMTcyOAABHm0aIKMmE0fdkC_xc6kmwQH9Ji02E8PSXt-FUyG29MFghZaBz0k95BCemgbQ_aem_6P8XwyGM6Aqicc45RbOmEw
Posted by kootles10
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From the article:
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.”
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.
I LOVE how this is downplaying the fact that fertilizer will not be available at all, and that companies wont cancel contracts if the price expands that much.
She is lying without technically lying.
So this political hack who was a darling of the conservative movement in Texas and the first Trump administration and has zero experience in any kind of agricultural dealings is having a conversation with the empty headed Maria Bartiromo – a total tool who thinks she’s a journalist because she’s a softball interviewer to the soulless Wall Streeters pushing predatory capitalism as a great thing.