Washington, D.C. — Farm Action today urged the Trump administration to act quickly to prevent another fertilizer pricing crisis as geopolitical conflict threatens global fertilizer supplies during the 2026 planting season.
In a letter sent to President Donald J. Trump and federal antitrust regulators, Farm Action warned that highly concentrated fertilizer markets leave producers vulnerable to another pricing shock like the one that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “With renewed geopolitical instability now impacting fertilizer shipments, there is a real risk of a repeat,” the letter states.
Farm Action’s Agriculture Consolidation Data Hub shows the top four nitrogen producers control more than 80 percent of regional production capacity, while two firms control more than 90 to 95 percent of phosphate and potash capacity.
Farm Action called on the administration to review whether key fertilizer inputs should be designated as scarce or threatened resources under the Defense Production Act and to provide an accelerated public update from the interagency task forces created under the administration’s recent Executive Order on agricultural market concentration.
Farm Action previously urged the Department of Justice to investigate fertilizer pricing during the 2021–2022 spike and published an analysis showing fertilizer prices rose more than 60 percent in 2021 and averaged 132 percent higher in 2022 than in 2020.
Today’s letter warns that without action, “temporary geopolitical disruptions” could escalate into “sustained financial harm” for already struggling American farmers.
