Fertilizers not only become dramatically more expensive, but also often difficult to buy. Farmers from the Łódź Chamber of Agriculture are alarming that, compared to the previous year, the price of some of them has almost doubled. They decided to intervene in this matter.
From the beginning of the year, farmers have been observing an abrupt increase in the prices of mineral fertilizers. Moreover, some types of fertilizers – such as UAN – have nowhere to buy. Even experienced farmers do not remember this situation.
The Agricultural Chamber of the Lodzkie Voivodship decided to intervene in this matter.
– On behalf of the Board of the Chamber of Agriculture of the Łódź Province, I would like to inform you that the IRWŁ Office receives signals from farmers from the Łódź Province about difficulties in purchasing nitrogen and multi-component fertilizers. Currently, the prices of fertilizers have increased significantly compared to the previous year, e.g. 1 ton of ammonium phosphate in 2020 cost PLN 1,800.00, now you have to pay PLN 2,900.00. Poland is a large producer of fertilizers, therefore the difficulties in supplying the Polish market are incomprehensible to farmers. Therefore, I am asking for intervention measures – wrote to the President of KRIR, Wiktor Szmulewicz, Bronisław Węglewski, President of the Management Board of IRWŁ.
Unfortunately, according to experts, no cuts are expected in the near future.
It is believed that the currently observed high level of fertilizer prices was caused by three factors. The first is soaring energy prices (oil and natural gas), which are picking up in line with the recorded recovery in the global economy. Thus, the costs of fertilizer production also increased (the price of natural gas is up to 70% of the fertilizer production costs).
The second factor is interrupted supply chains, bottlenecks – and hence market shortages and exploding transport costs, and thus … higher fertilizer prices for end consumers.
The third factor is the high prices of grains and oilseeds. They have increased agricultural demand in many countries such as the US, Brazil, Russia and China. And this – as you can guess – also influenced the increase in fertilizer prices.
Analysts believe that the observed situation with fertilizer prices will continue for about a year. Only then should the transport chains begin to function properly again and fertilizer prices should fall. It will also be influenced by the expected… increased supply. As in any other situation, sooner or later, high prices of a given commodity increase its supply.
