Food Security Is Fertilizer Security

How Global Conflict and Foreign Trade Distortion Threaten the American Grocery Bill

KEY POINTS

America feeds itself — but that self-sufficiency rests on fertilizer. Direct imports account for just 15 percent of U.S. food and beverage spending. The other 85 percent runs through a domestic supply chain anchored by 1.87 million farms and $10.4 trillion in economic activity. Mineral fertilizers are responsible for over half of the food produced worldwide, and have run up to 44 percent of corn and 45 percent of wheat operating costs since 2020.
The 2026 price spike was made abroad, not in America. A war shut the Strait of Hormuz — conduit for roughly half the world’s traded sulfur — collapsing tanker traffic nearly 90 percent. Ukrainian strikes and Moscow’s own restrictions cut Russian ammonia exports 80 percent below pre-war levels. China restricted up to 40 million metric tons of fertilizer exports while Russia and Kazakhstan banned sulfur exports outright. The World Bank projects fertilizer prices up more than 30 percent this year.
Foreign governments, like China, are weaponizing American food affordability. The U.S. is a key source of key raw materials for the world. However, recipients of U.S. exports – namely China – have responded by closing their markets off to the rest of the world. While America provides the world with key inputs for fertilizer, the finished products created abroad do not flow back into the American market, jeopardizing domestic food supply.
Sulfur is the starting material — and the story. Sulfur has jumped from roughly $100 per metric ton to more than $1,200, a twelvefold increase. Every ten tons of phosphate fertilizer requires roughly four tons of sulfur, and known curtailments could leave global phosphate supply 20 to 30 percent short. When farmers cut fertilizer, yields fall — input inflation today is grocery inflation tomorrow.
The durable answer is American capacity — and the buildout is underway. The administration has declared fertilizer a national security priority. It has launched the $500 million FIELDS Program, invoked the Defense Production Act, and triggered large investments in new U.S. capacity. Policymakers must secure that build: restore the trade remedies, launch a Section 232 investigation to guarantee new capacity a home market, and put American producers first in line for American raw materials.
Repealing the Moroccan phosphate duties is a policy trap. The countervailing duties are not driving today’s prices. U.S. phosphate was the cheapest major price point in the world, even with the duties in effect, because the binding constraint is global sulfur supply disruptions, not a tariff. Repeal would deliver no short-term relief, undercut a strong domestic industry absorbing a war shock, and rebuild dependence on Morocco’s OCP, a state monopoly holding 68 percent of the world’s phosphate reserves. Commerce’s own July 2026 preliminary sunset results confirm the point: even after a full review with Morocco and OCP participating, the Department found revocation would likely mean renewed subsidization at 20.04 percent — higher than the previously established rate. The June 29 suspension must expire on schedule, not become a foundation for permanent dependence.

America Feeds Itself — and Fertilizer Feeds American Farms

Americans rely on food grown right here at home. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has found that direct imports make up just 15 percent of total U.S. food and beverage purchases; the remaining 85 percent — the bulk of consumer food spending — was produced by the domestic supply chain [1].

The U.S. agricultural sector also carries broader economic weight. It starts with 1.87 million farms working 874 million acres [2]. However, the food and agriculture sector as a whole supports 48.7 million jobs across the economy — nearly 24.3 million of them directly, in farming, manufacturing, processing, distribution, retail, and foodservice. This generates more than $10.4 trillion in economic value, about 20 percent of national output [3].

Fertilizer, and access to it, is essential in maintaining the strength of the entire American agricultural sector. Mineral fertilizers are responsible for over half the food produced worldwide [4], and it has run up to 44 percent of corn operating costs and up to 45 percent of wheat operating costs since 2020 [5]. When fertilizer prices spike, they hit the crops that feed the country — and the livestock fed off those crops.

Fertilizer 101: The Inputs Behind the Inputs

There are three major types of fertilizer. Each depends on key raw materials.

Nitrogen. Nitrogen fertilizers are built from ammonia, made by combining atmospheric nitrogen with hydrogen from natural gas. Gas is both feedstock and fuel, which is why nitrogen prices track energy markets — and why America’s shale gas is a genuine competitive advantage [6]. Roughly 88 percent of domestic ammonia production goes towards fertilizer [7].

Phosphate. Phosphate fertilizers — diammonium phosphate (DAP) and monoammonium phosphate (MAP) — start with phosphate rock. The U.S. mines this rock domestically, chiefly in Florida, Idaho, North Carolina, and Utah [8]. Turning it into a plant-available nutrient requires sulfuric acid. Sulfuric acid is made from sulfur, which is overwhelmingly a byproduct of oil and gas refining [9]. Every ten tons of phosphate fertilizer requires roughly four tons of sulfur [10]. Phosphate fertilizer is downstream of the oil and gas complex, through sulfur.

Potash. Potash is mined from ancient seabed deposits and depends on neither sulfur nor oil and gas refining. The United States imports more than 90 percent of its needs [11]. Its price has stayed comparatively calm through the Hormuz crisis, however, since the import supply is largely from Canada [11].

The takeaway: two of the three macronutrients run through globally traded, geographically concentrated starting materials — natural gas for nitrogen, sulfur for phosphate. When the input materials get squeezed, fertilizer gets expensive and food prices naturally follow right behind it.

A Global Supply Emergency: Beijing, Hormuz, and Russia

Beginning in early 2026, fertilizer prices surged around the world. The nutrients American farmers spread on their fields every season — nitrogen and phosphate above all — and the raw materials behind them, especially sulfur, jumped at once. The World Bank’s fertilizer price index climbed more than 12 percent in the first quarter of 2026 alone, and the World Bank projects an increase of more than 30 percent for the full year. This spike is primarily driven by higher input costs — particularly for nitrogen- and phosphate-based fertilizers [12]. That surge is now traveling down the supply chain, to the farm ledger and the grocery shelf. Rising prices in this area are the product of three overlapping foreign shocks: a war that froze the world’s most important shipping lane for fertilizer ingredients, attacks and export bans that choked off Russian supply, and Beijing’s decision to hoard its own production.

China and the export bans. China — the world’s second-largest fertilizer exporter, shipping more than $13 billion worth last year — banned exports of nitrogen-potassium blends and key phosphate varieties in mid-March [19] [20]. Stacked on existing urea bans and quotas, the restrictions cover half to three-quarters of China’s export volume — up to 40 million metric tons Industry insiders do not expect relief before August [20]. In the spring, Beijing also halted sulfuric acid exports outright — a market where China alone held roughly 23 percent of global trade — with shipments already down 49 percent year-on-year through April [21].

This is exacerbated by the fact that China is the top recipient of U.S. exported sulfur, according to OEC data [49]. Further, sales to countries like Indonesia often represent sales to Chinese state-owned enterprises. Massive volumes of raw materials integral to sustaining American fertilizer supply are being sent to markets that send nothing back as a matter of policy. This is an unforced error compounding supply chain issues caused by pre-existing disruptions.

Russia has banned industrial sulfur exports since November 2025, now extended through the end of 2026 [22]. In May, its rail authorities indefinitely blocked transit of Kazakh sulfur, roughly four million metric tons a year [23]; and in late June Kazakhstan suspended its own sulfur exports entirely, exempting only Russia [24]. Turkey and India are curbing exports as well [25] [26]. When the big exporters slam the door to feed their own industries first, everyone else is forced to scramble for what remains.

The Strait of Hormuz. The Persian Gulf is the main artery of the world’s fertilizer and sulfur trade, supplying roughly half the world’s traded sulfur, about a third of urea exports [13], roughly 30 percent of global ammonia [6], and about 35 percent of global seaborne crude oil [14]. When the Iran conflict shut the strait to a near-standstill in February 2026, tanker traffic collapsed nearly 90 percent [15] — a loss the World Bank called the largest oil supply shock on record, with Brent oil prices jumping 50 percent and fertilizer affordability falling to its worst levels since 2022 [14]. Iran halted ammonia production; Qatar suspended urea, ammonia, and sulfur output after damage to facilities [12]. By April, nitrogen (urea) topped $850 per metric ton — up 80 percent since February and the highest since April 2022 [12].

Russia and Ukraine. Russia is the world’s top fertilizer exporter and the second-largest producer overall [16]. Ukrainian drone strikes on oil and fertilizer infrastructure, refinery shutdowns, and Moscow’s own export restrictions have drastically cut global supply. Russian ammonia exports have fallen roughly 80 percent below pre-war levels [17]. However, the Kremlin is using its continued fertilizer capacity as leverage after the Hormuz crisis. Days after capping its own fertilizer exports, Moscow — whose shipments bypass Hormuz entirely — offered supplies to the global south with political strings attached [16]. The pressure campaign is already showing results: in late March, fertilizer-price fears pushed Washington to lift sanctions on three potash producers in Belarus — Moscow’s closest ally and home to the world’s second-largest potash maker [18].

As a result, sulfur has gone from roughly $100 per metric ton to more than $1,200 — a twelvefold increase [10]. Known curtailments could leave global phosphate supply 20 to 30 percent short [27]. Phosphate is doubly exposed — to disruptions in sulfur supply and to Hormuz’s finished-fertilizer trade — and it is bearing the brunt.

The Bill Comes Due: Food Prices and Farm Economics

The consumer impact is already visible: food prices in May 2026 ran 3.1 percent above a year earlier, with certain categories seeing an even larger impact [28]. The producer price index for farm-level wheat is up 31.2 percent since just last year [28]. Energy alone drove over 60 percent of May’s monthly CPI increase [29].

Farm economics were stressed before the fertilizer price shock hit. USDA forecasts 2026 net farm income down 2.6 percent in real terms [30], with about 70 percent of farmers reporting that they are unable to afford all the fertilizer they need [31].

Costs are already changing behavior in the field. Farmers are shifting acres from fertilizer-hungry corn toward soybeans [32], and wheat acreage is down six percent from 2025 and has hit a record low [33]. When farmers are forced to cut fertilizer, yields fall; tighter supply means higher food prices the following year. Input inflation today is grocery inflation tomorrow.

The Policy Trap: Misplaced Blame and S. 4418

With prices at the grocery store and the farmgate climbing, some in Washington are reaching for the simplest available villain: blame the tariffs and repeal the countervailing duties on imports from countries like Morocco. However, this approach is economically misguided.

S. 4418, the Lowering Input Costs for American Farmers Act, would permanently revoke the countervailing duties on phosphate fertilizers from Morocco and Russia. The duties date to 2021, when the U.S. Department of Commerce found Morocco’s state-owned OCP Group benefited from unlawful subsidies; the original 19.97 percent duty rate was cut to 2.12 percent in November 2023 after litigation, then raised to 16.81 percent in November 2024 after Commerce found the subsidies had grown [34]. Commerce’s July 2026 preliminary sunset results show the Moroccan subsidies go even further than the original case, putting the subsidy rate likely to prevail upon revocation at 20.04 percent — the highest figure in the order’s history [50]. Five years of enforcement did not shrink Morocco’s subsidy regime — it revealed a broader one.

Proponents of repeal lean on a Texas A&M analysis estimating the duties added roughly $6.9 billion to phosphorus costs from 2021–2025. However, the study mistakes the global fertilizer crisis for a tariff effect — crediting a duty on a sliver of U.S. supply with a price surge that hit every market on earth. First, the study’s tariff effect is measured almost entirely from the 2021–2023 window — the same window in which China halted phosphate exports, roughly 30 percent of world trade, and Hurricane Ida shut major Louisiana phosphate plants [35]. In this same window, amid supply disruptions in Russia and Belarus, the World Bank recorded global fertilizer prices more than doubled globally in 2021 and jumped another 55 percent in 2022 [12], in every market, with or without tariffs. A model that assigns the U.S. share of a worldwide spike to a U.S. duty is measuring the crisis, not the tariff — and the study’s own data end in late 2023, meaning roughly $1.8 billion of the headline figure is projected for years the model never actually measured. Second, the magnitude fails a basic plausibility check: the study’s own data show net U.S. import reliance running four to 16 percent of U.S. consumption and Morocco reduced to only about two percent of imports. A duty on that small sliver of total U.S. input cannot raise the entire market’s price by 28.6 percent.

Finally, the market data itself refutes the analysis. If a tariff were truly setting U.S. phosphate prices, America would have to be paying a premium over the rest of the world. However, with the duties being collected through late June, the benchmark U.S. phosphate price — DAP loaded on a barge at New Orleans, the hub where imports land and against which domestic production is priced — was still the cheapest major price point in the world [36]. A duty cannot be the binding cost in a market already priced below every non-tariffed alternative. The duties are not setting prices in 2026 — which means repealing them cannot deliver the relief S. 4418 promises.

Repeal Fails on Three Time Horizons

Short term: it will not lower prices. The binding constraint is not a Moroccan tariff; it is global sulfur supply disruptions. The World Bank attributes the DAP spike to tightening supply and surging sulfur input costs, not trade policy [12]. Lifting a duty reopens no strait and reverses no export ban. Morocco’s OCP itself is cutting up to 30 percent of quarterly capacity [37] — a preview of what betting on imports buys. When global supply tightens, foreign producers serve their own markets first, and imported supply is the first thing America loses. The durable answer is a durable supply of America’s own.

Medium term: it knocks down an industry America should be rebuilding. This is not a weak industry — America has the foundation of a robust fertilizer producer, mining roughly 20 million tons of phosphate a year with about a billion tons of reserves still in the ground [8]. Raw material is not the constraint. What the industry is absorbing is a war-driven input shock: $1,000 sulfur has forced temporary 50 percent production cuts at major Louisiana and Florida plants [38]. Eliminate tariff protection at that exact moment, and the gap is filled not by fair competition but by subsidized imports undercutting U.S. producers at their most exposed. Every domestic ton surrendered to a subsidized import is capacity that does not come back when the emergency ends. The duties are what keep a strong industry standing against subsidies the Commerce Department has verified and found growing [34].

Long term: it creates structural dependence on a foreign state-backed monopoly. The Moroccan import supply is not neutral: it belongs to OCP, a state-owned enterprise sitting on over two-thirds of the world’s phosphate reserves [8] — in a nutrient with no substitute in agriculture. America has run this dependence experiment before, in both directions. Before the duties, Morocco supplied over half of U.S. phosphate fertilizer imports — 2.0 million metric tons of a 3.6-million-ton total in 2019 [39]. Under the duties, Moroccan volumes collapsed by roughly 90 percent, to about 200,000–350,000 tons a year — while total imports held: 3.6 million tons in 2021, and 2.9 to 3.3 million in 2023–2024.

FIGURE 1:

Other suppliers filled the gap almost ton for ton. A countervailing duty is meant to strip the subsidy out of the price, and that is exactly what they did. The duties did not choke off America’s phosphate supply — they reoriented it away from a subsidized monopolist, proof that dependence is reversible when sound policy holds.

The June 29 suspension is a step in the wrong direction. The White House has suspended collection of the Moroccan duties for up to eight months under the fertilizer emergency proclamation [40]. The suspension deserves to be understood for what it is. These duties were not discretionary leverage tariffs. They are trade remedies won through years of litigation before the independent, bipartisan U.S. International Trade Commission — and from the dawn of the modern trading system in 1947 until 2022, no President had ever suspended such remedies at will. The one precedent is cautionary: the Biden administration’s 2022 emergency suspension of duties on Chinese solar imports, invoked under the same Section 318 authority, promptly triggered a congressional campaign to repeal the fertilizer duties as well. Temporary suspensions teach foreign state-owned enterprises that adjudicated findings are politically negotiable — which is precisely the lesson the sunset review must now un-teach.

The suspension move does come amid rising prices punishing farmers, but ultimately it deepens foreign dependence at the precise moment global supply chains have proven unreliable. It reopens the door for heavily subsidized product to price American producers out of their own market. The suspension will not cure the shortage: it does nothing to address the key global supply shocks that are at the root of the issue, particularly in the Strait of Hormuz and Russia. OCP itself has cut up to 30 percent of quarterly capacity, so there is little product to attract [37] — but it does invite whatever subsidized tons exist to land duty-free while U.S. plants absorb $1,000 sulfur unprotected. The greater danger is what a temporary lapse can become. Legislative vehicles like S. 4418 could harden it into permanent repeal.

The enforcement record, however, cuts against repeal. In its June 30 expedited sunset review of the parallel Russian order, Commerce found revocation would likely lead to continued subsidization [41]. And on July 24, in the Morocco review itself — a full sunset review in which OCP and the Moroccan government participated and filed rebuttals — Commerce preliminarily determined that revocation would likely lead to continued or recurring subsidies at 20.04 percent ad valorem, above the current 16.81 percent rate [50]. The suspension has not changed the adjudicated facts: the subsidies are real, verified, and growing. The suspension must at least be allowed to expire on schedule — and it must not become a foundation. Otherwise, a temporary lapse becomes the monopoly’s permanent opening, and America’s food supply falls into a dependence that is hard to escape.

Rebuilding the Base: Fertilizer and American Reindustrialization

There is a better path — and the administration has already charted much of it. The White House has committed to partner with American producers to expand domestic manufacturing capacity as the source of “long term stability for American farming” [42]. This is where the administration is exactly right: the durable response to a foreign-driven supply emergency is increased American capacity in sulfur, ammonia, and phosphate — so that a war half a world away can no longer reach the American grocery bill.

And the machinery is turning. The administration has declared fertilizer a national security priority and launched an all-of-government reshoring effort [43]; phosphate and potash were added to the Critical Minerals List in November 2025 [8]; and a February executive order mobilized the Defense Production Act for domestic elemental phosphorus [44].

On July 1, 2026, USDA launched the $500 million FIELDS Program to fund construction and expansion of domestic fertilizer production — nitrogen, phosphate, potash, and sulfur — with awards of $15 to $150 million for shovel-ready projects, under Secretary Rollins’s banner that “food security is national security” [45]. Grants like this build capacity, but only trade remedies keep that capacity sellable — a subsidy without a secured home market is a subsidy built to be stranded.

The pipeline shows both what’s at stake and what America is capable of producing domestically: an $80 million hydrogen ammonia fertilizer investment in Washington state [46], a Michigan potash mine with a conditional $1.26 billion federal loan guarantee [11], and a newly approved Idaho phosphate mine [8]. Beyond these, restarted federal fertilizer-expansion projects are expected to unlock over two million tons of new annual capacity [46]. Every ton of new domestic capacity displaces a ton America would otherwise import. This is not a country that needs a state-backed monopoly’s fertilizer; it is a country finishing the capacity to do without it. Federal policymakers must secure that buildout, not allow it to be undercut by imports while it is still underway.

America holds the winning hand if it chooses to play it. Start with energy: the largest domestic nitrogen producer ran on Henry Hub gas at a realized $3.31 per MMBtu in 2025, while European and Asian rivals paid $12 to $15 [47]. Add phosphate rock in Florida and Idaho [8], and refineries and gas plants that produce nearly 90 percent of the sulfur America consumes [48]. The raw materials are here. What the U.S. is missing is the policy to keep them working for America. Even though the United States is the world’s second-largest sulfur producer, a third of the sulfur it consumes still arrives from abroad — because 1.8 to 2 million metric tons of American sulfur, roughly a quarter of elemental output, is exported every year [48]. In a normally functioning global market, that two-way trade is unremarkable — sulfur is a global commodity, and exports and imports clear at similar prices. But the 2026 market is not functioning normally, and the trade now runs only one way: American raw material remains welcome in global markets — China’s above all — whose governments have banned the return flow of sulfuric acid and finished fertilizer. Sulfur that averaged $46 per ton in 2024 [48] is being replaced by purchases above $1,000, with Russia, China, and Kazakhstan withholding supply for their own state-backed fertilizer complexes. Rebuilding domestic capacity addresses only half of that exposure. The other half requires ensuring American manufacturers have first claim on American raw materials — and the recommendations below address both.

Policy Recommendations

1. Apply reciprocity to America's raw materials — starting with China.

Foreign state-owned enterprises must not be allowed to manipulate American food security and prices from both ends of the supply chain: buying up the raw materials American producers need while their own governments ban the return flow of acid and finished fertilizer. Make the terms explicit: for as long as Beijing bars its sulfuric acid and fertilizer from American markets, Chinese state-owned entities should be barred from purchasing American sulfur — and the same standard should apply to the state-owned enterprises of any government, including Russia’s and Kazakhstan’s, that weaponizes its own exports. Monitor U.S. raw-material flows during declared emergencies. American raw materials should supply American manufacturers first, fair traders second, and market-manipulating state monopolies not at all.

2. Treat sulfur as a strategic material.

Phosphate security is sulfur security. Keep refining and acid-plant capacity healthy — refinery runs determine sulfur output — and establish a strategic elemental-sulfur reserve: the United States currently holds none, even as it draws down the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in the same crisis, and unlike sulfuric acid, elemental sulfur can be stored safely at scale. A reserve is a bridge. It cannot replace lost production, but it can carry American plants and planting seasons across a disruption while domestic capacity comes online.

3. Give America the right of first refusal on sulfur.

As long as domestic sulfur needs go unmet, key raw materials needed to foster America’s food supply should not be shipped overseas. Sulfur’s price is set globally, but in a market where four governments have banned exports, paying the world price no longer guarantees steady input supply at home. American buyers should be given the first opportunity to purchase sulfur at a price point that reflects domestic abundance, before offering this supply to buyers abroad at prices that reflect the choke points in international shipping. American buyers at the source should not have to outbid a global market inflated by a war premium and foreign export bans to keep American sulfur in America.

4. Accelerate the domestic ammonia buildout.

No input plays more to America’s strengths: ammonia is made from natural gas, and U.S. producers pay a quarter of what European and Asian rivals pay for it. Complete ambitious existing projects and move FIELDS awards to shovel-ready projects promptly.

5. Make the Critical Minerals designation real for phosphate and potash.

On paper, phosphate and potash now rank alongside rare earths; in practice, they should command the same urgency. Extend Defense Production Act tools, federal financing, and expedited permitting to new domestic mining and processing — including the approved Idaho phosphate mine and the Michigan potash project, the first meaningful dent in an import reliance that exceeds 90 percent of potash needs.

6. Restore the countervailing duties on Moroccan and Russian phosphate.

At minimum, let the temporary emergency suspension expire on schedule, oppose S. 4418’s permanent repeal, and insist that Commerce’s sunset review be decided on the enforcement record. Commerce found just weeks ago, in the parallel Russian order, that revocation would likely mean renewed subsidization. Now in July 2026, Commerce also found in its preliminary determination that revocation of the Moroccan order would likely mean renewed subsidization at 20.04 percent — above the rate previously established.

These are not discretionary tariffs but adjudicated remedies, won only after producers spent years proving to independent commissioners that foreign subsidies were injuring the American market. An eight-month lapse must not become the foundation for permanent dependence on a state-backed monopoly and Commerce must carry the preliminary determination through to final results. No one invests billions in capacity that subsidized imports can undercut the day it opens, and the duties are what keep the rebuild economically sustainable.

7. Launch a Section 232 investigation of fertilizer imports.

The administration opened a dozen Section 232 national security investigations in 2025 — semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, copper, critical minerals — and not one on an agricultural input. Secretary Rollins has already supplied the predicate: if food security is national security, then fertilizer — the input the food supply cannot function without — merits the same Section 232 treatment. Phased import quotas would reserve a growing share of the American market as domestic capacity ramps up.

8. Move the freight.

Fertilizer that misses the planting window might as well not arrive at all. Designate urea, ammonia, phosphate, and sulfur products as critical cargoes, and invest in the inland waterways, rail, and ports that move bulk fertilizer to farm country in time for application seasons.

9. Reform permitting structurally.

Washington proved speed is possible when it began putting certain key permitting decisions on a 45-day clock. Make that the rule, not the exception. A new mine or chemical plant should not take a decade to open — capacity announced today must be operating before the next chokepoint closes.

Conclusion

The food on American tables depends on fertilizer for the crops grown here at home, and the global market has just demonstrated how quickly those inputs can be weaponized: a strait closed, a battlefield widened, and one government after another slamming its export doors to feed its own industries first. The result reached the American grocery bill in months. Washington’s response will decide whether this crisis becomes a turning point or a template. Blaming the tariffs and suspending duties on a state-backed supplier’s product only deepens the crisis and our dependence on foreign supply. The durable path is the one the administration has begun paving and must now finish: restore the trade remedies that keep the rebuild worth making, treat sulfur as the strategic material it has proven to be, and complete the buildout — the plants, the mines, the waterways — that puts the essential inputs back within America’s own borders, and never again lets the American grocery bill hang on a strait half a world away.

References

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[27] Farm Progress, “Top Tips: What Farmers Should Know About the Fertilizer Fracas,” 2026. https://www.farmprogress.com/management/top-tips-what-farmers-should-know-about-the-fertilizer-fracas

[28] U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, “Food Price Outlook: Summary Findings,” June 2026. https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-price-outlook/summary-findings

[29] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Consumer Price Index — May 2026” (news release), June 2026. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm

[30] U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, “Farm Sector Income Forecast,” February 2026. https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-sector-income-finances/farm-sector-income-forecast

[31] American Farm Bureau Federation, “Farm Bureau Survey Reveals Real Impact of Fertilizer Availability and Price,” 2026. https://www.fb.org/intel/markets/farm-bureau-survey-reveals-real-impact-of-fertilizer-availability-and-price

[32] American Farm Bureau Federation, “Prospective Plantings Report Provides First Look at Acreage Intentions,” 2026. https://www.fb.org/intel/markets/prospective-plantings-report-provides-first-look-at-acreage-intentions

[33] U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service, Acreage, June 30, 2026. https://esmis.nal.usda.gov/sites/default/release-files/795961/acrg0626.pdf

[34] U.S. Department of Commerce, “Phosphate Fertilizers From the Kingdom of Morocco: Final Results of Countervailing Duty Administrative Review,” Federal Register, November 12, 2024. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/11/12/2024-26178/phosphate-fertilizers-from-the-kingdom-of-morocco-final-results-of-countervailing-duty

[35] DTN/Progressive Farmer, “China Phosphate Fertilizer Export Freeze Adds to Global Supply Challenges,” September 30, 2021. https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/crops/article/2021/09/30/china-phosphate-fertilizer-export

[36] DTN/Progressive Farmer, “Urea, UAN Fertilizers Lead Majority of Fertilizer Prices Lower,” July 1, 2026. https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/crops/article/2026/07/01/urea-uan-fertilizers-lead-majority

[37] Argus Media, “Morocco’s OCP to cut production in 2Q,” 2026. https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news-and-insights/latest-market-news/2809545-morocco-s-ocp-to-cut-production-in-2q

[38] Bloomberg, “Fertilizer Maker Mosaic Loses Out as Iran Conflict Roils Inputs,” May 11, 2026. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-05-11/fertilizer-maker-mosaic-loses-out-as-iran-conflict-roils-inputs

[39] U.S. Census Bureau, USA Trade Online (database), accessed July 2026. https://usatradeonline.census.gov/home

[40] Reuters, “US to suspend some duties on phosphate fertilizer from Morocco,” June 30, 2026. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-suspend-some-duties-phosphate-fertilizer-morocco-2026-06-30/

[41] U.S. Department of Commerce, “Phosphate Fertilizers From the Russian Federation: Final Results of the Expedited First Sunset Review,” Federal Register, June 30, 2026. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/06/30/2026-13106/phosphate-fertilizers-from-the-russian-federation-final-results-of-the-expedited-first-sunset-review

[42] The White House, “Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Declares an Emergency and Authorizes the Temporary Suspension of Certain Duties on Phosphate Fertilizer from Morocco,” June 29, 2026. https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2026/06/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-declares-an-emergency-and-authorizes-the-temporary-suspension-of-certain-duties-on-phosphate-fertilizer-from-morocco/

[43] AgWeb, “Fertilizer Declared National Security Priority in Push to Expand Domestic Production,” 2026. https://www.agweb.com/news/policy/politics/fertilizer-declared-national-security-priority-push-domestic-production-expa

[44] The White House, “Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Ensures an Adequate Supply of Elemental Phosphorus and Glyphosate-Based Herbicides for National Security,” February 18, 2026. https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2026/02/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-ensures-an-adequate-supply-of-elemental-phosphorus-and-glyphosate-based-herbicides-for-national-security/

[45] U.S. Department of Agriculture, “Secretary Rollins Announces $500 Million for Fertilizer Investment and Expansion Program to Strengthen America’s Fertilizer Supply Chain” (press release), July 1, 2026. https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/news/press-releases/2026/07/01/secretary-rollins-announces-500-million-fertilizer-investment-and-expansion-program-strengthen

[46] Jessica Domel, “USDA Provides Update on Fertilizer Production Projects,” Texas Farm Bureau, May 26, 2026. https://texasfarmbureau.org/usda-provides-update-on-fertilizer-production-projects/

[47] Crack the Market, “CF Industries: The North American Advantage,” Substack, 2026. https://crackthemarket.substack.com/p/cf-industries-the-north-american

[48] U.S. Geological Survey, “Sulfur,” Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026, February 2026. https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2026/mcs2026-sulfur.pdf

[49] Observatory of Economic Complexity, “Sulfur: United States Bilateral Product Trade” (database), accessed July 2026. https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-product/sulfur/reporter/usa

[50] U.S. Department of Commerce, “Phosphate Fertilizers From the Kingdom of Morocco: Preliminary Results of First Full Sunset Review of the Countervailing Duty Order,” 91 FR 46772, July 24, 2026. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/07/24/2026-14971/phosphate-fertilizers-from-the-kingdom-of-morocco-preliminary-results-of-first-full-sunset-review-of

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