Farmer says soaring fertiliser prices make planting uneconomic

Rising input costs

A farmer in Tarbock, Merseyside, says rising fertiliser costs mean he could be better off selling the supply he already has rather than using it to grow crops.

Olly Harrison said the price of fertiliser has increased sharply since the war in the Middle East began, with a third of the world's key fertiliser chemicals passing through the Strait of Hormuz. He said he bought his current supply last June for about £340 a tonne, but prices are now more than £700 a tonne.

"We'd actually make more money selling it than putting it on the crop that it was intended for," he said. He added that replacing the fertiliser later would be expensive, and he will still need to buy some for next year's crops.

Pressure from the weather

Harrison said a cold, wet spring has further undermined the economics of planting. Some corn is still not in the ground, and he said the reduced number of growing days left in the season makes using fertiliser less worthwhile.

"If you're thinking that you may be getting 100 days to grow a crop in the spring and we're probably already 30 days late, we're down to 70 days worth of growing that crop," he said.

He said that with fewer daylight hours available, fertiliser would do little to improve the crop. Once diesel costs for machinery and the risk of needing perfect weather to harvest are added, he said farmers are left questioning whether planting is worth the expense.

Reliance on imports

Harrison, the fifth generation of his family to farm the site, said the closure of a fertiliser factory in nearby Wirral about three years ago had left him "completely at the mercy of imported fertiliser just to grow crops".

He said global disruption has repeatedly pushed up farming costs, citing the effects of the war involving Ukraine and Russia as well as fallout from Covid and more expensive machinery.

"It's just getting out of control," he said. "Every year of farming, it seems like double or quits. We feel like we're gambling all the time and the stakes keep getting higher."