New Zealand: Fertiliser price shock

Beleaguered district farmers are faced with a 90 percent hike in the cost of phosphate fertiliser, at a time most are already facing exceptionally poor returns and spiralling interest costs.

Fertiliser costs have been rising steadily for the past few years, on the back of an enormous upsurge in demand from developing economies like China and India, and an increasing trend towards growing maize for fuel in the United States.


Corn crops are heavy users of fertiliser, Summit Quinphos chief executive Gray Baldwin told a gathering of farmers in Gisborne yesterday.

On top of this were significant increases in shipping costs and the cost of aerial spreading.

“One of those two-tonne Fletcher aircraft uses about 280 litres of fuel an hour,” he said.

Gisborne Herald