Bismarck, ND – Tennessee farmer Todd Littleton expects to pay $100,000 more for fertilizer this season, a 40% jump from his bill last year thanks to… War in Iran – He is striving to cover this additional cost.
“The problem is that we are Very stressed financially “That’s when we got into this problem,” said Littleton, a third-generation farmer from Gibson County in the state’s northwest corner. “We’ve had two record losses over the last couple of years, so everyone is clutching at straws anyway, and then input prices go up again, and it couldn’t happen at a worse time.”
Littleton, who grows corn, soybeans and wheat, is among thousands of farmers across the country who will pay much more this spring than they expected for critical fertilizer for their crops. Nitrogen based fertilizers It’s especially vital for corn, typically the largest U.S. crop that feeds the nation’s livestock and is converted into a fuel that helps power most American cars and trucks.
Farmers have complained about high fertilizer prices for years, but prices have risen further since the United States and Israel attacked Iran on February 28, slowing shipping through the region. Strait of HormuzIt is a transit point for 20% of the world’s oil and natural gas. Besides the increased price of fuel, which is key to fertilizer production, the shipping disruption has also largely halted the export of nitrogen fertilizers manufactured in the Arabian Gulf and limited access to key fertilizer components.
About 15% of fertilizer imports into the United States come from the Middle East, and about half of the global supply of urea, the main ingredient, comes from the region, along with 30% of ammonia, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.
“When the ports started raising nitrogen prices due to conflict over shipping concerns, it directly impacted me here on the farm,” Littleton said.
The additional costs are difficult to absorb, Littleton said, because they come after several bad years when crop prices fell even as expenses continued to rise.
It could be worse, as some farmers may not be able to get fertilizer at any cost, said Zibby Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation.
“We’ve been told that many of our farmers who haven’t pre-ordered and paid for fertilizer may not even get the fertilizer they will need during the season or for spring planting,” Duvall said. “That is why the situation is so dangerous.”
Harry Ott, a cotton, corn and peanut farmer who also leads the South Carolina Farm Bureau, said there is not enough fertilizer stored in warehouses to meet demand in the coming months.
“It’s a really terrible situation that our farmers are facing,” Ott said.
Even before the recent price increase, other factors in the past few years have pushed fertilizer prices up, starting with the war between Ukraine and Russia, which blocked access to raw materials and increasing natural gas prices. China has also reduced phosphate exports while focusing more on domestic needs.
Recent factors have exacerbated existing supply issues, meaning that even if the war with Iran is resolved, fertilizer prices likely will not fall quickly, said Jackie Fatka, agricultural supply economist at creditor CoBank.
“There’s going to be a tail end to this to restart everything and get it back out there,” Fatka said.
Then there’s the time it takes for shipments from the Middle East to reach the United States — typically 30 to 45 days to reach the Port of New Orleans.
Some fertilizers are already stored in the United States and can meet demand amid shortages in Middle Eastern imports, but at some point that supply will decline.
“We don’t quite know how it’s going to play out,” said Nancy Martinez, director of public policy, trade and biotechnology at the National Corn Growers Association.
Nitrogen- and phosphate-based fertilizers are largely produced locally, which helps a little, said Anne Villamil, an economics professor at the University of Iowa.
“But again, energy prices are an input, so even if you’re producing it in the United States, if the cost of your inputs goes up, that’s going to be a price increase for farmers who want to buy it,” Villamil said.
Chad Hart, an economics professor at Iowa State University, said higher oil prices could lead to higher food prices, given the increased cost of diesel needed to transport produce to grocery stores and petroleum products used in plastic packaging.
However, increased fertilizer prices should not significantly lead to increases in grocery stores even if they hamper farmers’ profits. This is because on-farm costs are only a small fraction of what consumers pay in the supermarket.
The Trump administration said it has taken steps to ease the cost of fertilizer, including a move to increase fertilizer imports from Venezuela, which U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brock Rollins called a “huge step that puts farm security and farmers first.”
The Agriculture Department also notes that it previously announced $12 billion in one-time payments to help farmers offset losses caused primarily by tariffs imposed by the Trump administration. The USDA also said in a statement that it has provided more than $30 billion in additional aid to farmers since January 2025, and the agency signaled its support for a more competitive fertilizer market that would ultimately lower prices.
CoBank’s Fatka said $12 billion doesn’t go far for farmers who pay $44 per acre for corn, while the USDA estimates about $900 per acre in production costs for the average American farmer.
However, farm bankruptcies remain rare, with just 315 cases last year — a tiny fraction of the roughly 1.9 million farms nationally. Prices of the country’s two largest crops – corn and soybeans – have risen recently.
Tom Waters, who farms about 5,000 acres (2,023 hectares) of corn, soybeans and wheat east of Kansas City, said rising fertilizer prices along with other costs make it difficult to make a profit when crop prices are so low.
“Profit margins are getting smaller and smaller, so we have to work hard to lower our costs and be as frugal as possible, but still provide the soil and crop it needs to grow and produce,” Waters said.