The Trump Administration is working on a plan to increase domestic nitrogen fertilizer production and infrastructure in the United States.
Following a Missouri farmer roundtable at GR Farms in Higginsville, Missouri, Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins told reporters, “America has off shored too much of our fertilizer production for far too long, leaving us dangerously reliant on Russia and China.”
Rollins told the roundtable this long-term solution will take time and money. She’s asked U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to identify a certain amount of money that can be used to build out nitrogen fertilizer plants in America, “We’ve already begun to identify all over the country, some are under production, how do we move them along more quickly, but some of them are in the permitting bureaucracy, which, sometimes it takes years to get through permitting, and our goal is to, instead of years, to get through permitting in a matter of weeks, or perhaps months.”
Rollins says she’s optimistic that would allow new production facilities to be running in the next three years, and in the near-term, the administration is focused on short-term solutions like looking at countervailing duties and extending the Jones Act waiver. And she said to expect more details in the next week or two.
Garrett Hawkins with Missouri Farm Bureau says something needs to change, “It is very unique, and I appreciate the fact that at the highest level across the Cabinet, they are talking about supply chain issues and ways to bring back the critical components we need and rely on.”
EDITOR’S TAKE:
Fertilizer is a major ingredient in the production of the commodities that eventually generate our food supply. The fact that costs have risen dramatically due to all the geopolitical unrest is concerning. Even prior to that, it was widely recognized that the U.S. was highly dependent on other nations, especially some of our adversaries, for our fertilizer needs. With the Trump Administration taking steps to alleviate this situation should be a positive step in the longer term.
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