China’s fertiliser crunch leaves farmers grasping at straws a month before crucial spring application
- China’s worst coronavirus outbreaks since pandemic began have locked down fertiliser-producing provinces, choking supplies to farmers ahead of spring sowing
- Bottleneck comes amid record high fertiliser prices, driven by strong global demand, high energy costs and sanctions on major producers Russia and Belarus
China’s coronavirus curbs are disrupting the supply of fertiliser to the country’s northeastern breadbasket, just a month before spring planting, and pose a threat to this year’s corn and soybean crops.
Farmers typically have fertiliser prepared in early April before applying it to fields later in the month during the sowing processing. But China’s worst outbreaks of Covid-19 since the pandemic began two years ago have triggered strict controls on the movement of people and goods, sharply slowing deliveries.
Fertiliser producers, dealers, analysts and associations said rules requiring truck drivers to take coronavirus tests every 24 hours and to obtain special passes to deliver goods, along with factory suspensions due to local cases, are all contributing to tight supplies.
“The production of nitrogen fertiliser, and fertiliser preparation for spring planting, has been greatly affected,” the China Nitrogen Fertiliser Industry Association said this week.
Jilin, China’s second-largest corn-growing province, has been among the hardest hit after the local government banned the movement of people across the provincial border from March 14 as coronavirus infections numbered into the thousands daily.