Fertiliser prices continue to ease, with deals for CAN at £790 to £800/t available this week. While this is down £100/t from the peaks of £900/t in mid-March, CAN is still costing £550 to £560/t more than last April.
Prices of compounds are also down by close to £100/t, with quotes for 25-5-5 around £840/t and 27-4-4 moving closer to £860/t.
Again, while prices are down, grassland compounds are trading well above the £260 to £290/t price range experienced during April of last year.
Further price corrections are expected, but fertiliser is not expected to return to anywhere near prices seen in previous years.
Merchants report that sales of fertiliser collapsed following the £300/t price hike applied in early March and despite prices coming back a little since then, very few farmers are purchasing nitrogen at present.
Andersons Agflation index at 28.8%
Meanwhile, analysis undertaken by leading farm consultancy firm Andersons suggests that inflation within agricultural inputs is currently running at 28.8%, dwarfing the UK government’s consumer price index (CPI), which accelerated to 6.2% in February 2022.
While agflation has surged to nearly 30%, it had been at 10% before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “Given recent developments, it is likely to remain high for the rest of 2022 at least,” state Andersons.