Commodity groups, ag trade associations and private companies appealed to administration officials on Thursday to designate key fertilizer and herbicide inputs as “critical minerals” to shore up supply and reduce prices.
In a spate of comments submitted to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) as part of an effort to gather public feedback on the 2025 critical minerals list, respondents welcomed the proposed addition of potash but pushed the administration to do more to combat rising fertilizer prices.
“With input prices continuing to remain high, Nebraska Corn is exploring any avenue that can help return profitability to corn growers,” read a submission from the Nebraska Corn Board and Nebraska Corn Growers Association.
The Department of Interior had considered adding phosphates to the 2025 list, in addition to potash, according to an August Federal Register notice, but opted not to include the materials in the draft list submitted for public comment after studying phosphate supply chains.
Respondents from across the agricultural industry warned that this omission would be a mistake.
Supply chain volatility has been a "driving force in the skyrocketing cost of producing our nation’s food, feed and fuel supply,” a comment from a coalition of 12 agricultural industry groups reads.
“Designating phosphates as a critical mineral will allow for a more abundant and stable fertilizer supply in the United States,” the coalition – which includes the American Farm Bureau Federation, American Soybean Association, American Sugar Alliance, National Council of Farmer Cooperatives and USA Rice – argued.
The critical minerals list is used to shape federal investment and permitting decisions. The proposed 2025 list would expand the 2022 list from 50 entries to 54; potash featured on the 2018 list, but was dropped from the 2022 installment.
Phosphate wasn’t on either list.
Earlier this year, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to fast-track permitting procedures and accelerate the development of domestic energy and critical mineral supply chains, expanding the advantages afforded to producers of minerals that receive the coveted designation.
To be considered for inclusion on the critical mineral list, a mineral must be essential to U.S. economic or national security, face a supply chain that is vulnerable to disruptions and serve an essential manufacturing function in a key national industry – including agriculture. Phosphates clearly meet these criteria, as laid out in the Energy Act of 2020, Bayer argued in its own submission.
Not only is phosphate ore an essential ingredient in nitrogen-phosphorous-potassium fertilizers, but Bayer pointed out that it is also a key input for glyphosate, the popular herbicide.
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As evidence of the vulnerability of domestic glyphosate supply chains, Bayer pointed to recent supply chain disruptions stemming from Hurricane Ida, which sent prices skyward.
“Given the vagaries of the United States’ environmental permitting process and litigation system, it is easy to anticipate a situation where a significant or complete break in the glyphosate supply could leave United States farmers totally dependent upon China for a more limited supply of this foundational agricultural chemistry and totally vulnerable to price gouging,” wrote Michael Holland, director of government affairs for Bayer U.S.
The push to add phosphate to the critical minerals list has plenty of advocates in Congress. More than 60 lawmakers from both parties wrote to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum earlier this week to argue that USGS had erred in omitting phosphate from its draft critical minerals list.
They pointed to China’s repeated efforts to restrict diammonium phosphate (DAP), monoammonium phosphate (MAP) and phosphoric acid exports, and the subsequent price spikes, as evidence that U.S. producers are at the mercy of a strategic rival’s supply.
USGS models supply chain disruptions for 84 mineral commodities to assemble the proposed list, the agency said. But the lawmakers and others argue that the methodology likely didn’t flag phosphates for inclusion because of abundant domestic supplies of phosphate rock, without taking into account the supply chain vulnerabilities for finished phosphate products like DAP and MAP.
Accordingly, a comment from the Agricultural Retailers Association President Daren Coppock pressed USGS to add phosphate rock, phosphoric acid, DAP and MAP to the critical minerals list.
“Additionally, we recommend updating disruption models to account for export bans, concentrated supply risks, and planting-season market shocks that pose far greater vulnerabilities than current assessments capture,” Coppock wrote.
Rio Tinto, the world's largest mining company, also urged USGS to include borates in the 2025 list in a comment from its head of government relations for the U.S. and Latin America, Del Renigar. Refined borates are used as a micronutrient in fertilizer and the U.S. is a net importer, despite having significant reserves in California, according to Borates Today, a boron news service.
The appeal to the administration comes the same day Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced the administration will embark on a fresh effort to protect farmers from price swings in the fertilizer, seed, energy and equipment sectors.
The USDA chief singled out “undue foreign influence” as a driver of rising fertilizer prices – which she said have climbed 37% in roughly four years.
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