‘Sit tight’ is advice on fertiliser price crux

GALWAY farmers have been advised to ‘sit tight’ over the coming months in relation to the purchase of fertiliser – with prices ‘having gone through the roof’ over recent weeks.

Many merchants have either zero or very low stocks of fertilisers in their yards at present as the cost of 11.10.20 hovers near €1,000 per tonne, with urea close to €900 per tonne.

A worldwide ‘perfect storm’ of restricted fertiliser exports from some countries; the closure of fertiliser plants in Europe; the Suez Canal blockage; spiralling freight costs; as well as the scarcity and escalating price of natural gas, has been blamed for the shortages and the price hikes.

Henry Walsh, Galway IFA Environment Representative, told the Farming Tribune that farmers – and the merchants/co-ops too – had little choice but ‘to sit tight’ for the moment and see how things would pan out over the early spring period.

“There is really nothing farmers can do at the moment only to hold off. We are hoping that over the coming months, the supply problems would ease and that the price of natural gas would come back a little too, but this is still a very worrying situation for farmers,” said Henry Walsh.

He pointed out that with countries like Russia and China worried about their own food security issues, there was a reluctance on their part to export product, if they feared that they hadn’t enough to meet their own needs.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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