There was a 14% increase in sales of fertiliser containing nitrogen in the last full year (2024/2025) compared to the previous full year (2023/2024).

That's according to figures from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, which show that 620,464t of straight nitrogen fertiliser was sold in the four quarters covering October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2025.

This compared to 546,366t sold in the previous sales year.

The tonnage of straight nitrogen fertiliser sold equated to 199,200t of nitrogen by nutrient content.

Meanwhile, compound fertiliser containing nitrogen saw sales of 742,666t in the last sales year, compared to 649,152t the previous year.

These compound fertiliser sales included 150,093t of nitrogen by nutrient content.

Adding the straights and compounds together, there were 1,363,130t of nitrogen-containing fertiliser sold in the most recent sales year, which included 349,293t of nitrogen by nutrient content.

These figures mean that the tonnage of fertiliser sold containing nitrogen increased by 14.02% on the prior year, while the amount of nitrogen content in the sold fertiliser increased by 12.53%.

This is the second consecutive year in which sales of nitrogen-containing fertilisers increased in tonnage, following an 8.22% increase last year compared to the 2022/2023 year.

This followed on from two consecutive significant decreases in sales: the figures for 2021/2022 were down 18.01% on 2020/2021; and the figures for 2022/2023 were down 17.59% on 2021/2022.

Of the straight nitrogen fertiliser, the most popular product was calcium ammonium nitrate (CAN) 26% + 5% sulpher (S), which saw sales of 167,052t, which included 43,434t of nitrogen by nutrient content.

CAN 27% also saw six-digit sales for the year, with 143,820t, which included 38,831t of nitrogen by nutrient content.

Other popular products include CAN 27% + 3.6% S (90,577t) and urea 46% (81,069t), while stabilised urea (protected urea) of two different types saw combined sales of just under 100,000t.

Phosphorous

There were 4,998t of straight phosphorous fertiliser sold in the last sales year, which included 821t of phosphorous by nutrient content.

There was also 693,076t of compound fertilisers sold containing phosphorous, which included 31,763t of phosphorous content.

These figures give totals of 698,074t of fertiliser which included 32,556t of phosphorous. These figures are up 14.53% and 13.29% respectively on the previous year.

The most popular phosphorous straight fertiliser was triple superphosphate 20%, with 1,891t sold, which included 378t of phosphate.

Potassium

For potassium, 29,543t of straight fertiliser was sold, which included 13,962t of potassium by nutrient content.

There was also 753,663t of compound fertiliser sold that contained 86,538t of potassium.

This gives totals of 783,206t of fertiliser sold with potassium, which included 100,501t of potassium by nutrient content.

These figures are up 16.18% and 14.13% respectively on the previous sales year.

The biggest selling potassium straight fertiliser was muriate of potash 50%, which sold 22,196t with 11,098t of potassium by nutrient value.

Totals

In total across all three elements (nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium), 655,005t of straight fertiliser were sold in the last year, which included 213,893t of nutrients; and 760,035t of compound fertilisers were sold, which included 268,367t of nutrients.

This figures give totals of 1,415,040t of fertiliser and 482,350t of nutrients.

These figures are up 15.06% and 12.91% respectively on the previous year.

Compounds

The biggest selling compound fertiliser was 18-6-12, with 161,351t sold.

This was followed by 27-2.5-5, with 136,745t sold; and 24-2.5-10, with 115,721t sold.

In total, 727,837t of compound fertiliser were sold, not including stabilised urea compounds.

In the stabilised urea compound category, 30,967t of 29-0-14+3S were sold, and 1,231t of 36-0-7+3.4S were sold.