Fertiliser prices look set to continue to move upwards, having already increased significantly from the end of last year.

Quotes from most fertiliser merchants are around the same level as last month, but merchants have indicated that more price increases are coming from their suppliers, meaning that prices for farmers will be up when new stocks are bought in.

Quotes from merchants for urea are around £270/t to £280/t and £190/t to £210/t for straight nitrogen (27% CAN). This has increased significantly from the end of last year when urea was trading at around £200/t and CAN at £155/t to £160/t.

Compound fertilisers have also moved upwards with 25-5-5 trading at around £265/t to £270/t and 20-10-10 at £270/t to £275/t.

“Those prices won’t be staying around that level for too much longer,” one merchant told the Irish Farmers Journal. Price rises of £50/t for CAN have been suggested by some merchants to match increases coming from fertiliser suppliers.

The price rises have been put down to the weakening of sterling against the euro and dollar and, more recently, reduced supply of fertiliser on the global market.

Urea is the global price setter in terms of nitrogen and reduced prices and increased production costs have led to cuts in urea production in China, the world’s largest exporter.

In Europe, CAN producers claim that lower production costs, in the form of reduced gas prices, have not offset the lower fertiliser prices of last year.

Forward-bought fertiliser

Figures released by DAERA this week suggest that some farmers anticipated prices rising ahead of the 2017 season and forward-bought fertiliser at the end of the year.

Deliveries of fertiliser to NI farms in the final quarter of 2016 increased by 155% year on year to 32,000t.

Final-quarter deliveries historically account for less than 5% of yearly totals but equated to 10.3% of annual deliveries in 2016.

Overall in 2016, fertiliser deliveries increased by 20.1% to a three-year high of 310,600t.

Campaign

Meanwhile, the Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU) has reiterated its support for a campaign by the Irish Farmers Association (that was backed last week by European farm lobby group Copa-Cogeca) to persuade the European Commission to remove tariffs that protect EU fertiliser manufacturers from imports.

The UFU has said that suspending tariffs on imported fertiliser could reduce fertiliser prices by up to 5%, which would translate into additional income of around £800m for farmers across the EU.