From Crisis to Reinvention: How the Fertilizer Industry Rebuilt After COVID Disruption
Editor’s Note: As we mark the first 25 years of the 21st century, CropLife reflects on the innovations, challenges, and transformations that have shaped ag retail — honoring our past while looking ahead to agriculture’s promising future. In this article, we look at how the crop nutrition industry has navigated unprecedented disruption, adapted through innovation, and begun to reinvent itself with smarter technologies and strategies for long-term sustainability.
For the crop nutrition industry, the coming of 2020 marked a watershed moment. As the COVID-19 virus morphed into a global pandemic, economies around the world began slowing to a crawl. This caused many supply chains to slow down significantly as well – or in some cases, grind to a halt. Unfortunately, one of these was the global fertilizer chain. Throughout late 2020 and early 2021, the impact of this chain disruption was keenly felt by the fertilizer marketplace.
“It’s an unprecedented year; a crazy year,” said Joe Dillier, then Managing Director for Ameropa North America, speaking at the 2022 Wisconsin Agribusiness Classic. “I’ve been in this business since 1989 and I’ve seen years where demand was pulling prices, like in the early 2000s, when natural gas prices connected to fertilizer prices, and I’ve seen years when costs were driving prices. But I’ve never seen a year like 2021, where EVERYTHING was mixed up, both on the demand and supply side!”
A speaker at the 2021 Mid America CropLife Association annual meeting echoed this view. “Right now, there are massive shortages,” said Spencer Vance, North American President for Albaugh, LLC. “When COVID first hit, everything shut down, and it’s taking a long time to get shipping containers, ships, and port operations back up and running again. Naturally, this has caused a massive increase in the costs to get a shipping container anywhere in the world.”
Ag retailers and their grower-customers experienced this supply chain disruption firsthand. According to the 2021 CropLife 100 survey, 95% of the nation’s top ag retailers indicated that they had trouble getting fertilizer products through the supply chain during that year’s growing season.
For a few years after this, fertilizer prices hit record highs. “Urea was selling for $250 per ton at the start of 2021, but it went up almost immediately thereafter,” said Dillier. “By spring, the prices really jumped, to $625 per ton. In a normal year, these would have dropped as the spring season ended. But that didn’t happen in 2021. By fall, urea was selling for more than $750 per ton.”
Other crop nutrients also jumped significantly in price during this time. This included UAN (up 380%); anhydrous ammonia (up 384%); phosphate (up 190%); and potash (up 263%).
Although the fertilizer supply/demand situation has improved somewhat since 2021-22, the category is still experiencing higher-than-normal prices as the industry works its way through 2025.
“Fertilizer prices are showing an upward trend for 2025 and eroding farmers’ purchasing power, as commodity prices are not increasing in tandem,” wrote Bruno Fonseca, Senior Analyst – Farm Inputs at RaboResearch, in the company’s 2025 Crop Nutrition Market report. “We expect this unfavorable scenario for the fertilizer market to persist throughout the year.”
According to Tiger-Sul Director of Sales Don Sutton, part of this continuing “price pain” ties back to how the fertilizer market of 2025 differs from what it was back at the start of the 21st century.
“Fertilizer is an increasingly global market,” he says. “Only a small percentage of world fertilizer is applied in the U.S. and Canada. Prices will be influenced by demand outside North America. Options for fertilizer sourced in the U.S., when possible, will be critical.
“At the same time, the 4Rs of nutrient management (right source, right rate, right time, right place) will continue to play an important role in ensuring that fertilizer is applied correctly,” continues Sutton. “Choosing the best source of nutrient and aligning it with the appropriate application timing will remain essential for achieving the best results.”
Some companies are already trying to help U.S. ag retailers cope with these challenges. This year, Tidal Grow AgriScience formed what it is calling the Formulator Strategic Alliance. This strategic collaboration model is designed to accelerate the delivery of intelligent plant nutrition technologies. The alliance brings trusted ag retailers to the ground level of advanced crop input production, creating a new go-to-market approach that benefits both retailers and growers.
The first ag retailer to sign up for this program was Heartland Co-op. “We’re thrilled to be the first to enter this strategic alliance and help introduce a new, exciting intelligent input to growers,” said Chris Behrens, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing. “This gives us an opportunity to bring meaningful innovation to growers, setting ourselves apart in the local markets we serve and diversifying our business model.”
“This isn’t just a new crop input,” said Norm Davy, President and Chief Commercial Officer at Tidal Grow, announcing the partnership. “By aligning with strategic, forward-thinking organizations like Heartland Co-op, we’re building a leading-edge alliance designed to fast-track solutions that deliver performance, sustainability, and profitability for all stakeholders.”
The Coming of Smart Tech
Moving into the next 25 years, the crop nutrition category can expect myriad new opportunities to arise. One of these will involve the equipment used to apply fertilizer to crop fields during the spring and fall seasons.
“Equipment continues to advance with technology that improves the placement of fertilizer,” says Sutton. “GPS guides equipment accurately across the field. On-board weather stations that can adjust to wind speeds and other factors. Being able to enter the product being applied and the machine will adjust to recommended settings.”
These advances, coupled with improvements in overall technology (i.e., Smart Tech) will alter how and when crop nutrition is applied to fields, predicts Craig Dick, Vice President of Sales & Marketing at Phospholutions.
“The move toward improved ag technology and smart tools will play a critical role by helping growers and retailers do more with less,” he says. “High efficiency products that require lower volumes reduce labor and equipment needs, which is especially important as both costs and labor shortages rise. This improves profitability while reducing environmental impact, making sustainable practices easier to adopt. When technology aligns agronomic performance with economic returns, adoption accelerates.”
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