Agriculture’s baseline chemical fertilizers are NPK—nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, available for application in various forms. Before the events of this week, which have major implications for world food in the short term, world fertilizer supplies had already been hit hard by both geopolitical moves against Russia and Belarus—major suppliers of fertilizer to the world—and the hyperinflationary breakdown. Some key aspects of the picture now:
Nitrogen: Russia historically is a major supplier to the world, as shown in the rank order below, for its supply of different kinds of nitrogenous fertilizers. In recent years, Washington got Russian imports of N fertilizer banned for the U.S., favoring Western cartels, and to the detriment of U.S. and other farmers. In the last year, the U.S. National Corn growers and others appealed loudly to have this ban lifted. Prices for N fertilizers have soared in the last two years, along with every other basic commodity.
Russia % of World Exports Market Share Rank
Ammonium Nitrate 49% 1st
NPK 38% 1st
Ammonium 30% 1st
MOP 27% 3rd
Urea 18% 1st
Sulfur 9% 3rd
Source: ARGUS Feb. 23, 2022
Potash (Potassium): Belarus is historically a major supplier to world usage, as shown below, and Belarus and Russia together rank first in the world in production. In the last six months, this was absolutely disrupted, when the US/UK/NATO bloc muscled Lithuania to disallow its traditional rail shipment of Belarus potash to the Baltic Sea for export. Lukashenko and Putin have been in consultations on how to re-route Belarus potash through Russia to the seas.
Major Potash Producers 2021:
Canada – 14.0 MMT
Russia – 9.0MMT
Belarus – 8.0MMT
China– 6.0 MMT
Israel – 2.3 MMT
Germany – 2.3MMT
U.S – 480 KMT
Source: USGS Mineral Commodity Summary
