Lawmakers at a Senate committee hearing Tuesday focused on the impact of fertilizer prices and supply chain disruptions on the agricultural economy. Photo by Farooq Khan/EPA
Farmers and lawmakers called on the Trump administration Tuesday to lift duties on imported phosphate fertilizer, arguing during a Senate hearing that rising fertilizer costs due to the Iran war have hurt U.S. producers who already face tight margins.
“We need to get to the bottom of one of the biggest challenges farmers are facing these days, and that’s the cost of inputs and particularly fertilizer,” said Sen. John Thune, R-S.D.
Witnesses who testified at the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry hearing on fertilizer prices and supply chain affordability echoed demands last month from more than 60 agriculture groups, who asked the U.S. Department of Commerce to revoke countervailing duty orders in imports of phosphate fertilizer from Morocco and Russia.
A countervailing duty is a tariff imposed on imported goods to offset subsidies the exporting country gave its producers, ensuring those imports don’t undercut domestic industries.
Trent Kubik, president of South Dakota Corn Growers referred to a Texas A & M study found that the U.S. countervailing duty on Moroccan phosphate fertilizers imports “increased the cost of phosphorus fertilizers for U.S. producers by an estimated $6.9 billion between 2021 and 2025.”
“A [countervailing duty] would make sense if the domestic industry were competitive and if those foreign imports were harming that industry. Instead, the [countervailing duty) in this scenario is just increasing costs for American farmers,” Kubik said.
Lawmakers at the hearing focused on the impact of fertilizer prices and supply chain disruptions on the agricultural economy.
Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., called escalating costs, including on fertilizers, the “No. 1 issue” that affects American farmers. In a particularly heated moment, Marshall said prices have increased drastically for American farmers in part because of a countervailing duty on imports of fertilizer from Morocco.
He said the duties increase costs for American farms to protect an American company that controls more than 60% of phosphate production. Although he did not mention the name, Mosaic is the largest U.S. phosphate supplier.
“Getting rid of those countervailing duties would be the quickest and most immediate impact that the American farmer could see in the real world today,” Marshall said.
Corey Rosenbusch, president and CEO of the Virginia-based Fertilizer Institute, also pointed to global supply disruptions that affect fertilizer markets, including Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which he said interrupted the shipping of about half of the world’s sulfur exports.
He said countries including China and Russia have constrained global fertilizer supply, adding that China has kept phosphate for domestic consumption, contributing to higher prices.
Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., said fertilizer companies have made billions in profits while farmers continue to struggle with rising costs.
“There’s plenty of money in agriculture,” Smith said. “The question is who’s getting it, and it’s not farmers right now.”
