Sanctions on using Russian fertiliser products and using Russian vessels are making the importation of fertiliser into Ireland much more difficult.

The logistics nightmare threatens to make fertiliser availability an even bigger risk issue than it was before this Ukraine-Russia war broke out last week.

One of the main issues is that key ingredients that make up fertiliser at farm level are very difficult to source.

For example, diammonium phosphate is needed to make a farmgate fertiliser product like 18:6:12.

In round numbers, 1t of this diammonium phosphate product will make 3t of 18:6:12.

Listen to "Ep 503: Down to Agribusiness - Impact of war in Ukraine on Irish agriculture" on Spreaker.

The price of diammonium phosphate has increased exponentially to over $1,000/t in the last few days as Ukraine was one of the key sources and reserves of diammonium phosphate; these supplies are now unavailable to the market.

Nitrogen is the same. Urea out of Russia is not available as sanctions bite so all eyes have turned to north Africa as a source. Consequently the price has risen $160/t in the last three days as demand rolls in from around the world to fill the market gap left from the sanctions on Russia limiting trade.

One of the challenges for Irish fertiliser importers and hence farmers is that sourcing product from Africa puts an additional two to three weeks on shipping times. We are in early March now. Put six weeks on orders made today and we are in the second half of April. The other challenge is getting shipping on a non-Russian owned vessel.

Demand

According to importers, the bulk of the European demand for fertilisers is a cereal sector demand. These crops will effectively be in the ground or not by mid April.

The bulk of Ireland’s fertiliser demand is more spread out over the grazing year to meet the demands of the grass plant.

Some of the thinking within the fertiliser trade is that if we could use what fertiliser we have in the country to get all farmers to early April then the European demand will have lessened, giving us breathing space and capacity to plan and invest for the rest of 2022.

The availability issue is leading fertiliser importers to have a discussion with merchants around curtailing product to farmers to share out fertiliser stocks in the country. This would at least buy time so new routes, new suppliers and new purchases can be sourced in light of what has happened in the last week.