why is fertilizer so expensive?

[WTA]

I just went out and did all my soil sampling and I figured while I was waiting for the results to tell me how much I needed I'd call and get the current price on fertilizer.
For the liquid 32-0-0 that I like to use it's now 435 a ton!

I'm just trying to understand what makes it so expensive if anyone knows. When I started this farm just 4 years ago is was costing less than half that.

I am now seeing my fertilizer bill going to over a thousand dollars a month for our hay fields and my fuel bill for everything just on my farm for baling, cutting and spraying I'm expecting to be around 400 a month. This sucks. The feed stores are charging over 10 dollars a bale for hay. They are making all the profit. I'm charging 6.50 now and while making a little off it it's not like it used to be. I've tried charging more but then it doesn't sell.

Maybe I should spend some money on advertising and go up in price just a little under the feed stores. Or just figure out a way to store it all till winter when the feed stores are all over 12 bucks a bale. What are you other hay farmers doing to cope with the high input prices?

 

[ToadHill]

Most fertilizer is made using oil for manufacturing and the NPK is basically derived from oil as well. Just as your fuel costs go up with the changing price of oil, so will your fertilizer bill. I have started using green matter tilled into the soil and compost everything I can to offset some of the cost.

 

[LoneCowboy]

Urea, the nitrogen part is made from natural gas, so the price of natural gas directly affects the cost of N. P and K are mined.

and yes, doubled in the last year or so.

But luckily, there's no inflation, at least according to the .gov. Otherwise, you know, I might be worried.

 

[Charlesaf3]

can you use green mulch/cover crop?

 

[WTA]

I didn't know that's how they got urea. That explains it I guess.

I'm looking into cow manure as fertilizer at least for my winter time fertilizing. It's not too expensive at a compost place here. If my wife would let me buy some cattle then we could use that. She keeps telling me they are too expensive but she also has sharply reduced the number of steaks we buy. Good ones at least. I still think it's cheaper owning a few, breeding them and once or twice a year taking one to the butcher. He'll do all the work making one look like it came from the grocery store for half of the cow. To me that's a deal.

 

[Renovator]

India and China are buying allthe P&K that they can to feed there people causing the price to go up.
Renovator

 

[WTA]

Wouldn't China be speaking Japanese right now if it weren't for us and India, Didn't we have something to do with the English giving up their rule over them.

I love the thanks our country gets now.

When I lived in Japan I was paying 7 something a gallon for gas. It's killing us now paying almost 5 for diesel and about the same per gallon of fertilizer.
Does anyone see an end in sight?

 

[Renovator]

That is what is called world trade. Most of potash comes from Canada. Im not certain but I think Dap comes from Mexico.

 

[ddivinia]

I just went out and did all my soil sampling and I figured while I was waiting for the results to tell me how much I needed I'd call and get the current price on fertilizer.
For the liquid 32-0-0 that I like to use it's now 435 a ton!

I'm just trying to understand what makes it so expensive if anyone knows. When I started this farm just 4 years ago is was costing less than half that.

I am now seeing my fertilizer bill going to over a thousand dollars a month for our hay fields and my fuel bill for everything just on my farm for baling, cutting and spraying I'm expecting to be around 400 a month. This sucks. The feed stores are charging over 10 dollars a bale for hay. They are making all the profit. I'm charging 6.50 now and while making a little off it it's not like it used to be. I've tried charging more but then it doesn't sell.

Maybe I should spend some money on advertising and go up in price just a little under the feed stores. Or just figure out a way to store it all till winter when the feed stores are all over 12 bucks a bale. What are you other hay farmers doing to cope with the high input prices?

It sucks doesn't it? I paid $400 a ton and went back to get some more and the price had gone up to $425 a ton. I think hay prices will be going up (along with everything else).

D.

 

[Bedlam]

Yep it all spirals...out of control...
Consider the people who react, when I'm pumping gas and they say wow the prices, and I turn and point to the diesel prices.
They say I'm glad I don't have to care about those I don't have a diesel.Well in fact they do in a round about way.Consider that everything pretty much uses diesel to move and its going to trickle down.
HMM almost the train of thought the govt has .