Southwestern Fertilizer Conference 2022: Plenty of Mixed Opinions for Fall Application Season
August 3, 2022 For much of 2022, the overriding feeling regarding the crop nutrients marketplace has been one of uncertainty. Supply shortages – complicated by Russia’s war with Ukraine – and high global demand caused fertilizer prices to skyrocket for much of the spring application season. Now, with spring behind the industry, the question shifts to a new one: How will fall play out?
To get some type of gauge on this query, many market watchers probably attended the annual Southwestern Fertilizer Conference (SWFC) in mid-July. Historically, this event is attended by hundreds of ag retailers and crop nutrient suppliers, all looking to get some hints as to how the rest of the calendar year will unfold for agriculture.
This year’s SWFC, held in Nashville, TN, gave some clues – and the picture seems a bit muddled, to say the least. On the bright side, said attendees, higher fertilizer prices are currently being offset to a degree by higher commodity prices for crops such as corn and soybeans. “Even though prices are high, if commodities prices stay high, we should see a good fall application season,” observed Dave Klima, Vice President, Ag Sales, for Marcus Construction. Klima added that his company is seeing lots of demand among ag retailers for building more facilities to increase onsite fertilizer storage capacity to cope with ongoing supply chain disruptions.
Elsewhere, one micronutrients manufacturer said that “there was a ton of carryover from spring” for crop nutrient supplies at ag retail, so this could potentially help keep supply issues to a minimum during the fall application season.
On the negative side, however, grower-customer attitudes towards the higher costs for just about every kind of crop input and energy was not good. In fact, according to one Western Nebraska ag retail manager, his customers “are very grumpy.” “High fuel prices and dry weather means nobody is even wanting to talk about fall,” he said.
Loading ...In other words, it appears that the uncertainty that has dogged the crop nutrients marketplace throughout 2022 so far will continue to be an issue as the fall application season gets underway.
(Editor’s Note: CropLife magazine would like to thank Axiom’s Craig Dick for supplying this first-hand information from the 2022 SWFC.)
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