These are not ordinary times in farming, and especially not in the energy and fertiliser businesses. Last autumn, the worry was that fertilisers would not be available on the Irish market for the spring of 2023.

That fear has been replaced by questions about price. At a minimum we need an inventory of what fertiliser stocks are in the country. Ideally we also need some view of what price it is appropriate for farmers to pay.

It is clear that for stocks already in the country, there is a huge incentive to maintain prices as high as possible until the main spreading season is over.

The money involved is potentially enormous. We use about 1.6 million tonnes of fertiliser in Ireland each year.

Temptation

At a very conservative €600/t, this comes to almost €1 billion. It seems to me inappropriate that this year’s fertiliser trade be left entirely to opaque market forces. The temptation to manipulate prices over the next few months is clearly present.

At a basic level, we should have visibility on how much fertiliser has been bought over the last few months and at what cost.

We know that there have been direct imports from Russia - these have been entirely legal as fertilisers are not covered by sanctions, though there have been some complications in getting payments through the banking system.

State involvement

The basic question is how involved should the State be in the operation of what is regarded as a private sector market? It is already deeply involved in regulating the energy market.

Fertiliser is different, but it would seem that, as natural gas and fertiliser prices decline, and with some companies having already made public policy announcements that they will not source from Russia, we should have greater transparency over quantities that are available this Spring and some guidance on appropriate prices.

Many would see this as the minimum that should be expected from either government or the revamped competition authority. But time is ticking on.

A logical incentive to prevent super profits might be for government to mention the possibility of a windfall profits tax, as is so established in the energy sector.