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U.S. Increasingly Imports Nitrogen and Potash Fertilizer
Lynne Betts, USDA/NRCS
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Nitrogen, phosphate, and potash are essential plant nutrients.
U.S. farmers use about 21 million tons of these nutrients each
year in the form of chemical fertilizers, helping to sustain high
U.S. crop yields. But the sources of the nitrogen and potash have
changed markedly in recent years from domestic to foreign suppliers,
making the U.S. increasingly dependent on fertilizer imports.
Today the U.S. imports over half of the nitrogen and 80 percent
of the potash fertilizer used on its farms. The picture is different
for phosphate, most of which comes from domestic production.
The changing levels and sources of fertilizer, which can be analyzed
through a new database on the ERS website, have implications both
for farmers and fertilizer providers. Farmers have benefited from
lower nitrogen and potash prices because of the imports. But the
competition has caused some U.S. fertilizer plants to close down.
Also, the fertilizer distribution system has changed to accommodate
the increasing imports.
The U.S. went from being the world’s largest exporter of
nitrogen fertilizer in the 1980s to becoming the largest importer
in the 1990s. Domestic production of nitrogen fertilizer declined
during the 1990s as the price of domestic natural gas (the primary
source of nitrogen) increased because of demand for natural gas
in the U.S. expanding faster than production. Imports of nitrogen—mainly
from Trinidad and Tobago, Canada, and Russia, all with lower natural
gas prices—quickly filled the gap.
The U.S. has long been a net importer of potash fertilizer. Domestic
production of potash declined slightly in the late 1990s to less
than 1 million tons per year, about one-fifth of domestic use.
In the year ending June 2003, about 93 percent of potash imports
came from Canada and 3 percent from Russia.
By contrast, the U.S. remains the world’s largest exporter
of phosphate fertilizer. The U.S. exported about 5 million tons
(about half of total production) in the 12 months ending June 2003.
About 37 percent of phosphate exports went to China, with smaller
amounts to Australia, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, and other countries.
But exports have declined by 25 percent since 1997 as production
increased in other countries. Domestic use of phosphate has remained
steady at just under 5 million tons per year.
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