With fertilizer prices skyrocketing over the past several years, several U.S. Senators are demanding answers to why and how it happened.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), and Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) have introduced The Fertilizer Research Act which would require the USDA to study competition and trends in the fertilizer market to determine their impact on pricing.
“In recent years, our farmers have faced a lot of headwinds, and one of those challenges has been the spike in the price of fertilizer. Last year, the cost of fertilizer was a staggering 30 percent of input costs,” according to Baldwin.
While fertilizer prices have gone up sharply in the past few years, she says farmers haven’t been given a good enough reason why.
“At the same time, our farmers have very little insight into why these prices spiked and how they’re determined,” says Baldwin. “With this legislation, we’re hoping to pull back the veil, if you will, on the competition within this market and be able to craft solutions that address the high costs that farmers are facing.”
Baldwin adds that the high prices for fertilizer can have a negative domino effect impacting not just the ag economy, but the entire U.S. economy.
“High fertilizer prices don’t just affect our hard-working farmers. They also can result in elevated prices because they limit the amount that farmers might plant if they can only afford a limited amount of fertilizer. So, these are serious issues that affect our economy. And we need to have greater insight and information, and that’s what this bill would do,” says Baldwin.
Within one year of the bill’s passage, the USDA and Economic Research Council would be required to issue a report to investigate several issues including whether there have been antitrust violations or collusion within the fertilizer industry.
