Fertilizer

Fertilizer Trading / Fertiliser Trading and Crop Nutrition 

Fertilizer is a key component of the global agricultural and soft commodity markets and is a traded commodity in its own right.  Numerous companies exist in a back to back trading capacity, delivering different types of fertilizer to agricultural producers globally. 

Imperium Commodity Search is positioned to assist both candidates and clients in their search for the best opportunities in the global fertilizer trading markets. 

What is Fertilizer? 

Fertilizer in short, is any substance added to the earth/soil to increase the speed and yield of crops.  There are both synthetic and organic fertilizer types and with advancements in technology and understanding of crop nutrition, new fertilizers are developed all the time for specific applications and with enhanced response.  

The first synthetic fertilizers were produced in in the mid 1800’s using phosphates and sulphuric acid.  In the 1900’s ammonia became a key component of synthetic fertilizers.  Incredibly, it is thought that almost half of the global population of today are currently fed as a direct result of synthetic fertilizer.  

There are numerous types of synthetic fertilizer on the market with the key categories being Nitrates, Phosphates and Potash.  

NPK is the term to describe the amount of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) present in fertilizer as a ratio/concentration.  For example, fertilizer that is rated 10/5/5 has twice the amount of nitrogen by weight than it does phosphorus and potassium. This would also mean that you would need 10lbs of that fertilizer to add 1lb of nitrogen to the soil you are fertilizing as it has 10% per lb of nitrogen. 

Nitrate / Nitrogen Fertilizers are fertilizers produced from nitrogen chemical combinations.  For categorisation as ‘organic’, fertilizers must contain at least 5% nitrogen by weight.  Nitrogen is mixed with Urea and Ammonium to produce active fertilizer for crop growth. 

Phosphate / Phosphorus Fertilizer is produced from phosphate rock.  When dried and ground, this is reacted with sulphuric / sulfuric acid to produce superphosphate fertilizer.

Potash / Potassium Fertilizer is mined from areas where inland sea’s once stood.  The mined rock is separated into its salts and other minerals and the potassium removed for use in fertilizer production. 

Water Soluble Fertilizer is a term to describe any fertilizer product that can be dissolved in water and thus easily spread and controlled when adding the fertilizer to the ground. 

Specialty Fertilizer refers to fertilizers that are specially formulated to restrict the release of the nutrients over a longer period of time, meaning that less frequent fertilizations need to occur and crops have a controlled release of access to fertilizer and nutrients over the course of their growth. 

Fertilizer comes in many forms and different combinations for different purposes.  There are many information sheets available online that go into detail on the different types of fertilizer available and different trading houses specialise in different types and formations of crop nutrition / fertilizer. 

How is Fertilizer traded/shipped? 

Fertilizer is traded globally due to its importance in farming of all crop types but some countries have a much larger reliance on fertilizer products due to a large farming or crop production based economy.  

The largest producers of NPK fertilizers are: