USDA selected eight domestic fertilizer manufacturers to receive more than $573 million, which together with private funds totals more than $1.34 billion. They are estimated to add 1.08 million tons per year and to cut nitrogen prices by 4.4% and potash prices by 5.3%.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) selected eight domestic fertilizer manufacturers to receive more than $573 million in funds aimed at boosting domestic production. With private-sector investment, the total amount exceeds $1.34 billion.
The announcement was made Thursday by Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Vice President JD Vance. The projects, financed through the FIELDS program (Fertilizer Investment & Expansion for Long-Term Domestic Supply), are scheduled to break ground in weeks and be completed in 2027 or 2028. According to USDA staff, once operational they will bring about a "drastic price drop" in fertilizer products.
Rollins said the program is a key part of the effort to reshore inputs that today are exposed to global trade conflicts and that contribute to a difficult farm economy. "For the long term, we expect all of these prices to come down as we're reshoring fertilizer back to America," she said.
"At the end of the day, this is about building greater input independence, so that America's ability to farm and feed ourselves is no longer beholden to foreign nations and unstable global markets," she added.
The FIELDS program was announced in July to fund upgrades to existing facilities, increase supply chain efficiency and build new fertilizer production plants that are domestically owned and outside the "dominant" suppliers. According to USDA, 77% of nitrogen fertilizer production in North America is controlled by four companies; two companies produce 90% of potassium fertilizer and another two account for 90% of potash production capacity.
USDA is working with the Department of Justice on investigations into concentration and anticompetitive practices in the fertilizer and seed sectors. "We are very, very focused on what is happening and on why prices keep going up," said Rollins, who maintained that these investigations must "continue unabated" even as input manufacturing is reshored and prices come down for farmers.
Rollins linked the initiative to the goal of reversing "decades of policy and consolidation," and mentioned the $8 billion relief program announced Monday for producers. She also said there would be "big announcements" soon to improve competition in beef processing, through "the reallocation of some of the closed Tyson plants and others" to "trend back toward less consolidation."
The proposed funding will support fertilizer manufacturing in Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Tennessee, Nebraska, Illinois, South Dakota, Florida, Texas, Oregon, New Mexico, Virginia, California, Arizona, Kansas and Indiana. Of the total, more than $573 million comes from USDA's Rural Business-Cooperative Service for eight projects, several of which will serve multiple states. Cody Cornell, a USDA policy advisor, said part of the funds came from Fertilizer Product Expansion Program resources that were not used by the Biden administration.
Among those selected, TalusAg will deploy 20 modular ammonia manufacturing units in seven states; PCI Nitrogen, in Texas, will expand ammonium sulfate and urea production; Intrepid Potash, in New Mexico, will produce approximately 220,000 tons of sulfate of potash per year; and Agriculture Project Holdco will develop plants in Kansas and Indiana to convert dairy cattle manure into liquid ammonium nitrate fertilizer.
USDA economists estimate that the additional production from the eight funded projects will contribute about 1.08 million tons of domestic fertilizers per year. It is expected to reduce nitrogen fertilizer prices by 4.4% and potash prices by 5.3%.
In response to press questions, Rollins said these investments will lead to a long-term reduction in fertilizer prices as domestic manufacturing increases. In the short term, she anticipated "a significant drop in fertilizer prices once the conflict with Iran is resolved." The war with Iran has caused disruptions in global trade, partly because of closures in the Strait of Hormuz, where key fertilizer and fuel inputs have been held up.
Rollins also referred to the recent resignation of Calley Means, a senior advisor to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and a promoter of the "Make America Healthy Again" movement. She said there are some "tensions" in the administration because they are "trying and working to move so fast in changing decades-old policies."
"We just have to work together to continue supporting our farmers, stop the trend of losing tens of thousands of family farms every year, work to bring all of this back to our country for national security reasons and, at the same time, Make America Healthy Again," she concluded.
