Robin Boom Agronomic Advisory Services

The week before Christmas both Ballance and Ravensdown dropped their prices on some imported products – and for the farmer it just keeps getting better. In my 27 years of providing independent fertiliser advisory work I’ve never seen anything like the selection of companies and wide variation in prices between them as there is now.

For some imported high analysis products there are about half a dozen smaller importers who are a lot more competitive than the two co-ops. And I think the days of high rebates like $60/tonne from the co-ops will be a thing of the past as the price drops are being forced on them by the smaller importers, who can still remain considerably cheaper on certain products.

Both co-ops dropped their Di Ammonium Phosphate price by $40/tonne down to $745/tonne as several smaller importers were selling it for more than $100/tonne cheaper. But these small companies were still between $60/tonne and 100/tonne cheaper than the co-ops.

Triple Super – which is 20 per cent Phosphorus – also dropped by $30/tonne down to $750/tonne. But I know two importers who are still selling it for more than $200/tonne cheaper than the co-ops, below $550/tonne. There are massive savings opportunities out there in the market place.

Potash cheaper

Potassium also dropped $40/tonne down to $595/tonne, which is around the same price as some of the smaller importers. But there are still a couple of importers selling potash cheaper than this. For elemental sulphur products, the small importers are still about 10-15 per cent cheaper – about $60-100/tonne cheaper. High analysis dicalcium phosphate – which is 18 per cent Phosphorus – products can work out to be 50 per cent less once cartage and spreading are factored in for some cases compared to locally manufactured dicalcium phosphate products on a per unit of P basis.

Although neither Ballance nor Ravensdown are currently selling straight Reactive Phosphate Rock. Although Ballance does market BioPhos, which has RPR characteristics but sometimes the citric solubility of this product fails to make 30 per cent so may not always be classified as a RPR, there are 10 companies I know of selling various RPR products in the Waikato, BOP and King Country regions.

Two companies are selling Sechura RPR from Peru, two importing and selling Algerian RPR, two selling Egyptian RPR and four importing and selling Guano mainly out of Indonesia. However the prices between these companies selling similar products varies wildly.

Guano prices

Guano prices from the four importers varies from $450/tonne up to $680/tonne. Algerian RPR varies between $290/tonne and $430/tonne, and there are also differences in Sechura prices, but the Egyptian RPR prices are similar.

Urea and sulphate of ammonia prices also can be cheaper from some importers with Urea about $40/tonne cheaper and sulphate of ammonia in some instances is more than $100/tonne cheaper than the two co-ops.

As I don’t work for any particular fertiliser company, my job is to match the best value products from all of the different options out there for each specific farm’s requirements. Keeping my finger on the pulse as to all of the different prices is no small task at the moment. A year or two ago, it was fairly easy as the best prices were usually the two co-ops, but not anymore.

For one hill country farmer, who had budgeted spending $120,000 on applying straight superphosphate by plane, I was able to quote the same units of P spread on the ground using triple super from one the small importers for $90,000.

A $30,000 saving

This meant the farmer could fly an extra 300 tonnes of lime with the extra $30,000 he’d saved on the phosphate. A little more than half the $30,000 saving was on the product price differences between superphosphate and triple super, and the rest was on the lower cartage and application costs since the total tonnage was less than half when using triple super – which is 20 per cent P – compared to single superphosphate – at nine per cent P.

This scenario has been unprecedented during the last quarter of a century and it will be interesting to see how long it continues. However, don’t expect your local fertiliser representatives from whichever company you have historically dealt with to mention any of this to you.

For they will be hoping it will just be business as usual, although they are probably fully aware of what some of the opposition companies are offering. As I talk to different farmers, the odd one is already aware there is some serious competition in the marketplace, but most are not. Since you have now read this article, you too are armed with this knowledge.

Robin Boom, CPAg, member of the Institute of Professional Soil Scientists. Ph: 0274448764.