US Fertilizer Costs Split as Urea Slides and Phosphates Climb Into Year-End
Weekly US fertilizer surveys show urea down 7.7% to $730 a short ton while DAP jumped 24.2% to $961.83 and anhydrous ammonia rose 11.1%, leaving growers with a record $13.8bn farm safety-net payment to spread across very different input curves.
US nitrogen pricing is moving in two directions at once. In the weekly survey published on October 13, urea was quoted at $730.00 a short ton, down $60.94 or 7.7% on the week, while UAN 28% rose $102.00, or 20.5%, to $600.00 and UAN 32% added $64.71, or 11.6%, to $622.14. Anhydrous ammonia climbed $90.17, or 11.1%, to $905.67 a short ton, so the composite nitrogen bill facing growers depends heavily on which product and which application window they are buying for.
Phosphates are the tightest part of the complex. DAP was assessed at $961.83 a short ton, up $187.30 or 24.2% on the week, while MAP was little changed at $1,020.22, up just $3.99 or 0.4%. Potash moved the other way, with MOP down $35.69, or 6.3%, to $535.20, and ammonium sulfate eased $6.43, or 1.1%, to $574.12. The split complicates 2027 input budgeting, because a fall in urea does not offset a near-25% weekly jump in DAP for growers who apply both.
Farm income is getting an unusually large offset. The USDA announced that the Farm Service Agency's Agriculture Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage programmes will generate approximately $13.8 billion in gross payments to eligible agricultural producers for the 2025 crop year, described by the department as record payments for the revenue and price safety net. That cash arrives while individual input lines are diverging rather than moving together, and well ahead of most 2027 crop input decisions being locked in.
The same divergence is visible offshore. Argus last assessed granular urea at A$820-840 a tonne fca Geelong, with forward buying enquiries heard as late as April, which is very uncommon and is attributed in part to uncertainty driven by the ongoing Middle East conflict; Australian growers in Queensland and northern New South Wales are waiting on stronger rainfall before committing to urea for summer crop applications. Australian importers are meanwhile arranging MAP and DAP vessels from Morocco for October loading, with vessel tracking data from Kpler showing at least six weeks of transit from Jorf Lasfar. CBOT wheat futures have eased 2.9% over the past fortnight on Turkish efforts to broker a Black Sea shipping agreement, although renewed fighting has tempered optimism.