Fertilizer Costs Dominate the Conversation at Recent Commodity Classic

Over 150 Michigan farmers made the trip to New Orleans a couple of weeks ago for Commodity Classic. Some of them went down to help with policy direction for the national corn, soybean, and wheat organizations, while others, like Kevin Clarke, “come for the show and a little bit of relaxation where it’s warm.”

Clarke is a corn, soybean, and dry bean farmer in Coleman, MI. He told MAT that the highlights of his trip were going on some of the tours that were offered as well as seeing all the equipment and technology on display at the massive tradeshow.

Clarke says he also made the trip to learn some things that he can hopefully bring back to his Coleman farm.

“We’re learning more about the biochemistry and stuff for the plants where we don’t need as much fertilizer. We’re trying to cut back on our fertilizer costs, so we think maybe we’ll go with more of the bios and try to get in on those a little bit more.”

He and every other farmer in the country are looking at those rising fertilizer costs and trying to figure out how to manage them. As Clarke continues to learn about the biochemistry available, he discusses the plan for this year.

“We’re watching, very closely, our rates. We’re using variable rate on our fertilizer more than we have before just because of the fertilizer cost. We can still pencil it out, but it’s not going to be as profitable as it has been. It’s still going to be ok. We’d like to see [costs] come down, but we’ll make it through it.”