The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) has confirmed that 956,163t of fertiliser was sold over the first three quarters of the 2024 fertiliser year.
This represents a 2.65% increase on the same period in the previous year when 931,474t of fertilisers were sold, which was down by almost 16% on the 2021/22 figure (1,106,109t).
The department previously confirmed to Agriland that total fertiliser sales in the first two quarters of 2024, covering from October 1 to March 31, 2023, stood at 337,246t.
This means that some 619,000t of fertiliser was bought in the third quarter (Q3) this year.
Fertiliser
The National Fertiliser Database statistics show that between October 1, 2023 and March 31, 2024, 555,678t of compound and 400,485t of straight fertilisers were sold.
When compared to the same nine-month period in the previous year, sales of nitrogen (N) fertilisers were up by almost 3% to 929,578t, phosphorus (P) was down by 5% to 516,953t and potassium (K) was up by 1% to 565,151t.
Over 334,000t of nutrient was sold, which is up 3.7% on the same period a year prior.
The most popular compound fertilisers based on sales over the period were 18-6-12 (138,000t), 24-2.5-10 (99,000t) and 27-2.5-5 (90,000t).
The data shows that up to the end of Q3, over 21,500t of protected urea compounds were sold.
The department said that over 81,000t of Calcium Ammonium Nitrate (CAN) 26% + 5% Sulphur (S) was bought during the period, along with almost 76,000t of CAN 27% and over 65,000t of CAN 27% + 3.6% S.
Over 82,000t of stabilised urea and 61,000t of straight urea was purchased in the period.