Soaring fertilizer prices from Iran war impacting Connecticut farmers

The Iran war is having a big impact on farmers in Connecticut who are now dealing with soaring fertilizer prices. It’s a crucial material that helps grow or produce the food you buy at the grocery store.

“I go to the grocery store, and you see how expensive it is,” Jon Hermonot, an owner of Fairholm Farm, said.

High supermarket prices have Hermonot wincing whenever he makes a grocery run, but he has a good understanding of how prices are set, as he owns Fairholm Farm. It’s a dairy farm in Woodstock. Hermonot says it’s a very demanding and intensive operation with small profit margins.

“We put a lot of our money back into it, and we want this farm to be here,” he said.

He has hundreds of cows to feed and care for, but doing so has gotten harder ever since the Iran war began, especially because of the price of fertilizer.

“You combine that with the price of fuel and the other costs on the dairy farm, and to top that off, it’s like a perfect storm right now,” he said.

At the farm, they have seen the price of fertilizer double in about a month, in the tens of thousands of dollars. It’s used to grow the corn that goes into the feed the dairy cows eat.

“No fertilizer, no food. No farms, no food,” Paul Larson, president of the Connecticut Farm Bureau board, said.

He said fertilizer is crucial to grow many types of crops.

“Whether it’s vegetables, you’re raising hay, corn silage,” he said.

Larson explained that natural gas, a key component in fertilizer production, is affected by the war. That region produces a lot of it, and tankers are unable to get through the Strait of Hormuz, leading to a jump in price on the world market. Larson said farmers across Connecticut are noticing.

“It went around $400 in early February, but then after this war started in Iran, we’re now up to $850 to $900 a ton,” Larson said.

UConn vegetable and hemp specialist and educator Shuresh Ghimire said the timing isn’t great. Farmers have to decide now what to grow and how much to plant, so they’re ready for harvest in the fall.

“Not enough fertilizer would mean decreased crop yields. And that would also translate to increased produce prices at grocery stores later in the summer and fall,” he said.

Ghimire says even if the war ended quickly, there’s no immediate relief for farmers.

“The prices are not going to come down the day after. It will take some time to come down,” he said.

Larson and Hermenot hope President Trump secures a peace deal soon that ends the conflict and reopens trade to stabilize prices.

“That would be amazing. That would take the edge off of this,” Larson said.

“Maybe coming down to an agreement that can maybe open up the channel for oil to be flowing again,” Hermenot said.

Source Link