Now is not the time to waste fertiliser on a type of farming you are not familiar with, according to managing director of Grassland Agro, Liam Woulfe.
Speaking on the latest episode of Farmland about plans by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) to increase crop production, Woulfe said making this compulsory would not have been wise due to rising costs of fertiliser and supply-chain issues.
“If people are not used to being in the cereal and crop industry, I think there will be a lot of potholes that they’ll fall into.
“Now is not the time that you should be buying fertiliser that is four times more expensive than it was the previous year, for a practice run.”
Woulfe likened the expectation of dairy farmers moving into crop growing to himself working as a computer scientist – undoubtedly they would run into difficulties and make mistakes.
This is not a luxury farmers can afford when the cost of fertiliser is soaring, according to Woulfe.
“There must be a different way to achieve the same objective,” he said.
Rising energy prices have been pushing the cost of fertiliser up since last spring, resulting in his company trading product in October 2021 at three times the price it was in April of the same year.
Woulfe said he was worried back then but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has exacerbated matters dramatically.
“There is a market which is Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, that represent about 40% of the nitrogen of the world and also about 40% of the potash of the world,” he said.
These are all key inputs in the fertiliser industry. Due to sanctions placed on Russia, supply of these has fallen dramatically, alongside further hikes in energy prices, meaning the cost of fertiliser continues to soar.
“100% of demand cannot be satisifed with 60% of supply, by virtue of cutting out the Russians,” said Woulfe.
He said Grassland Agro is completely matched between its stock and expected stock, against its orders, and urged farmers to be modest in their supply expectations.
Offering some advice to farmers, Woulfe said:
“There are [supply] ships coming in slowly and I’m reasonably confident that they will arrive, but there are timing issues.
“I know what it is to be frustrated because you can’t get what you need, but don’t try to capture the volume you need too far forward because the more you try to do that, the more panic buying there’ll be.
“Somebody will be left without product in a bad way and you don’t want that. It is our objective that everybody has enough to keep them going this month and, hopefully, we’ll all get through it,” he said.
To watch the latest episodes of Farmland, click here.