The annual spring fertilizer and fuel price survey by Manitoba’s Keystone Agricultural Producers (KAP) shows phosphorous (P) prices up by 75 to nearly 100 per cent since last year.
The survey, conducted April 4-21 at dealers across the province and released Monday, also noted “significant” increases in potash, sulfur and nitrogen fertilizers and an increase of about one-third in the prices of farm fuels compared to their year-earlier levels.
About 25 per cent of Manitoba’s soils are classified as low or very low in P, on top of which farmers must replace the nutrients used by the previous year’s crops, KAP said.
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Prices for feed grains on the Canadian Prairies have “started to rebound a little bit,” said Matt Beusekom, trader with Market Place Commodities in Lethbridge.
“We keep hearing about the skyrocketing price of grains, but we need to remember that this money still isn’t real for farmers until the crop is harvested this fall,” said KAP president Ian Wishart, who farms at Portage la Prairie.
“In the meantime, we have to chase these record prices by paying very steep and very real fertilizer prices.”
Excerpts from KAP fuel and fertilizer survey results, April 2008
| Product | Price ($/T) | Change |
| over ’07 (%) | ||
| Nitrogen | ||
| Liquid 20-0-0 | 413.62 | 12.3 |
| Phosphate | ||
| Dry 12-52-0 | 1,210.72 | 96.3 |
| Liquid 10-34-0 | 824.50 | 75.2 |
| Potash | ||
| Dry 0-0-60 | 487.08 | 55.1 |
| Sulfur | ||
| 12-0-0-26 | 430.00 | 48.3 |
| Fuel | Price (¢/L) | |
| Purple diesel | 104.9 | 34.7 |
| Purple gas | 104.2 | 27.8 |
Source: Keystone Agricultural Producers, April 28
