 is! I also know how boring and unimportant learning the SAT seems. I promise to change this. I am an enthusiastic person and I love young people. My sessions are positive, high-energy and fun. I am preparing seniors to conquer their SAT exams once and for all, so that they can go on with their year knowing that they gave the SAT their best shot.
I love to make art. I love fitness and eating healthy. I love traveling, swimming, reading, hiking. I love to dance. I like doing DIY projects. I love being outside. I'm very family oriented and love to spend quality time with friends. I'm a huge advocate for Health, Wellness and Spirituality. I love exploring and going on adventures around the city to museums, restaurants, art openings, movies, etc. I'm passionate about Music, Social Justice, Education, Dance, my Dreams, Art, Youth, and Books. I also love coffee!Kerrin Hearfield: eBooks and self-publishing are the way to go!
Wow, one author recently turned down half a million dollars to self publish!
Check out this discussion with Joe Konrath for the details.
Really makes me want to go ahead with my vague idea to self epublish!
Check out Wendy Tyler Ryan's blog, website & book trailer: she's gearing up to go Indie!
I've been the traditional route and let's say I'm less than enchanted. I'm reading everything I can on self-publishing with a view to launching out at year end with one of my books. The way I figure it, I can't do any worse than what I've seen having gone with small presses.
I am not a professional, but I understand romance is a type of fiction that fits well on electronic media.tamarind staff
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Last updated: December 2007.ASSESSING DAMAGE: A Ukrainian soldier checks the wreckage of a burnt Russian tank on the outskirts of Kyiv on March 31.
Sanctions banning Russian fertilizer exports and China’s urea and phosphate production lockdown are squeezing global fertilizer supplies.
This is part three of four in the Black swan in the Black Sea series.
With fertilizer supplies for spring planting season mostly secured across the Northern Hemisphere, the war had little impact on farm-level fertilizer prices. In the month following Russia’s invasion into Ukraine, an index of biweekly fertilizer and fuel prices in Illinois found only a 0.9% increase in retail NPK and diesel prices.
Spring planting demand triggered larger price gains following that period. But input availability remains a more pressing concern for growers in the Southern Hemisphere, who are already preparing for planting season during the third quarter of 2022 and are heavily dependent upon international fertilizer supplies.
Brazil is the world’s largest fertilizer importer, relying on international purchases for 85% of its fertilizer requirements. Its 2023 soybean crop to be planted this fall will need potash supplies by September to ensure trend-line yields.
Before the war, Brazil sourced over half of its potash supplies from Russia. In the weeks following Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, Brazil negotiated deals with Canadian potash producers to procure supplies for the 2022-23 growing season.
“We can and must strengthen our ties and strengthen long-term partnerships, with a view to ensuring stability and profitability for all links in the production chain,” Brazil’s minister of agriculture, Tereza Cristina, said of Brazil’s new partnership with Canada in late March.
The U.S. is less dependent on Russian and Belarusian potash supplies, with only 11% of the U.S. 2021 potash supplies provided by the two countries. Canada will likely become a larger supplier to U.S. growers.
India will also buy more fertilizer from Canada. Before the war, India had tried to take advantage of discounts on Belarusian potash shipments but halted those efforts after the war’s onset amid costly sanctions.
India imports all of its fertilizer, and it typically relies on Russia and Belarus for a third of its fertilizer supplies. While it is possible India will try to broker a deal with the blacklisted countries if the hostilities relent, it is also increasing its fertilizer purchases from Israel, Saudi Arabia and Morocco in the meantime.
Preliminary shipping data in April showed Russian cargo vessels with fertilizer supplies arrived at Brazilian ports, despite international banking restrictions. Reuters expects at least 24 vessels are bringing nearly 678,000 MT of fertilizer from Russia into Brazil through May.
Brazil imports nearly all of its fertilizer from international sources, with Russia being a primary supplier. The trades are likely being made through Russian financial institutions not yet impacted by Western banking sanctions. Brazil’s purchases amid sanctions ensure that fall planting season will start off without any delays.
Will global fertilizer supplies increase?
Soaring natural gas prices in the EU amid Russian product shortages led large global fertilizer producer Yara, based in Norway, to idle production at two ammonia fertilizer plants in France and Italy in mid-March.
With sanctions banning Russian fertilizer exports, and China’s urea and phosphate production on lockdown through the first half of 2022, global competition for fertilizer supplies will be stiff through the next year.
Fertilizer companies are scaling up production to meet the unprecedented surge in demand, but no one knows yet when those supplies will come on line. Canadian-owned Brazil Potash Corp. will increase production in the Amazon region to meet demand.
Likewise, Nutrien announced in March it would increase potash production. After adding 1 million metric tons of potash output in 2021 in response to the tightening global supplies, it now expects 2022 production to propel the company’s potash output 20% higher than 2020 volumes. Nutrien produced 2.7 MMT of potash in 2020 and 3.1 MMT in 2021 — a 15% annual increase.
Nutrien’s global potash production is now forecast to rise to 3.2 MMT for this year. The company’s output is estimated to “account for more than 70% of global production added” over the past two years, according to a company statement.
Global fertilizer supplies have been constrained over the past year as supplies tightened due to multiple factors, including production imbalances leading into the pandemic, pandemic-fueled production slowdowns, growing global acreage expansion and trade disputes.
Russia’s invasion into Ukraine and the subsequent banking restrictions levied against several top Russian fertilizer producers will further constrain the market until either global competitors can expand production or Russia ends its Ukrainian occupation. Either option is likely to take at least months, if not years, to manifest, leaving fertilizer prices elevated.
With farm profits largely secure for the 2022 growing season in the U.S., fertilizer production expansion has thus far been largely left to develop at the will of the invisible hand of the market. Government incentives issued to these fertilizer producers for expansion purposes could be a short-term fix to increasing global fertilizer capacity.
It remains to be seen if political winds will create that option for markets in the Northern Hemisphere before growers make plans for the 2023 planting season. But USDA had some insights in the May 2022 World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report.
USDA officials made a point of sharing in the Secretary of Agriculture briefing following last Thursday’s WASDE reports forecasts that limited fertilizer and input access in Ukraine will not dramatically reduce Ukrainian crop yields this year, but the availability issues could still have a negative impact.
It wasn’t the first time this year that fertilizer concerns have surfaced in global production forecasts and I’m guessing it won’t be the last, either. USDA attaché reports released in the month prior to Thursday’s WASDE release cited concerns about corn, soybean, and wheat yield shortfalls due to fertilizer, fuel, and other input availability primarily for Brazilian and Argentine 2022/23 production forecasts.
To be clear, this is a hypothetical concern. We will not see any evidence of yield losses due to reductions in fertilizer applications until later in the growing season. And – at least in the U.S. – those worries are probably not warranted for the 2022/23 crop year because growers largely had adequate access to desired fertilizer supplies.
It is important to remember that USDA’s concerns about fertilizer availability in the Southern Hemisphere this year are likely foreshadowing potential yield contractions next year (2023/24) in the Northern Hemisphere. Even with supply chain challenges for the fertilizer market this year, Northern Hemisphere fertilizer supplies were abundant for the current growing season now underway, so this is not yet an immediate concern.
The outlook for the 2023/24 growing season is murkier than 2022/23 in terms of inputs. Crop prices typically fall before input prices do, so global farmers could be forced into a situation where high input costs cause fewer fertilizer applications if crop prices fall. And fewer corn and wheat acres expected to be harvested in 2022/23 could lead fertilizer producers to scale back expansion plans if growers do not use available supplies in the latter half of 2022.
Fertilizer availability is obviously not the most significant issue facing global farmers in May as the market juggles planting delays and shrinking grain supplies. But it is an issue that is going to be