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‘It’s not sustainable’: US farmers reeling as Iran war pushes fertilizer costs up
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2026
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Oh no the John Deere welfare queens are about to get yet another bailout
No, they want. This time around, they want them to go under, so the AGcorps and data centers can buy it all up cheap.
After all, they won't be needing their votes in the future.
All these maga farmers are going to lose their farms to Trump's buddies and then we'll all be paying more for food.
For BAD food.
Great. More of our tax dollars will be wasted keeping up more Trump voters who regularly vote against their own best interests...yet no one sees them as what they are: welfare queens.
Trump fucking over the farmers who voted for him yet again
2nd time in 1 year. the first time was his 1st term and he quickly "fixed' that sorta.
this is the 3rd the farmers voter for him, and the 3rd time he screwed them over.
And there is famers who didn't vote for him and countries needs famers
Aw... Are the leopards not eating the right faces there dumbasses?
It's sort of bonkers that sewerage treatment plants do create fertilizer as well. It just has to get from the treatment plants to the plant plants.
Also, most fertilizer being shipped around the world is just nitrogen taken from the air, which is an energy intensive process. Hence, the use of LPG.
Human sewage is not fertilizer. It's full of drugs, plastic, and who knows whatever else people just dump down the drain. Sure the water gets filtered, but the solid waste is contaminated as fuck all.
It has to be processed to remove the junk, which also sterilizes it. Which takes energy and time, and it USED to be more cost effective for a plant in a place where LNG comes from to pull nitrogen from the air to make fertilizer.
We already have plenty of solid sewerage waste, and even agricultural waste from cows we should be reusing.
...there's free drugs down there?
*don't?
But they do. That sludge is mostly spread on non-food fields though, because that would require more treatment than we are willing to pay for.
The fertilizer had been made with biosolids, part of an effort to find a climate-friendly method to recycle municipal sewage. But the fertilizer also contained synthetic and highly hazardous chemicals known as PFAS, which are found in hundreds of household products and have had devastating effects on farms and ranches that inadvertently spread them on their land.
An untold number of farms and ranches across Texas and the rest of the nation may have also used fertilizer made from sewage tainted with these “forever chemicals” — which don’t break down in the environment — without knowing it.
https://www.texastribune.org/2024/12/02/texas-farmers-pfas-forever-chemicals-biosolids-fertilizer/
Johnson County environmental crimes investigator Dana Ames was asked to look into the soil and land issues; her findings showed high levels of contamination. The fertilizer has had devastating effects — physically and financially — on Coleman and his wife, he said. He is one of the five farmers in Johnson County who filed a 2024 civil lawsuit against Synagro, alleging the plaintiffs’ land was poisoned by the company’s biosolids fertilizer. The company took over Fort Worth’s biosolids processing operations in 2020 following resident complaints of odors around sites where fertilizer was applied. Fort Worth was not named in the lawsuit.
Nearly 70 million acres of U.S. farmland could be contaminated by the toxic “forever chemicals” known as PFAS, according to estimates from biosolids industry groups. This contamination stems from the widespread use of sewage sludge as fertilizer.
The practice remains largely unregulated, despite mounting evidence it could contaminate food and water, creating public health risks. State and federal policymakers need to tackle this threat with steps such as banning the use of PFAS-contaminated sewage sludge on farm fields.
Harmful chemicals in sewage sludge that is spread on pasture land as fertilizer are causing cancer, the Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday. The risk is highest for people who regularly consume milk, beef and other products from farms where it is spread. The risk is “several orders of magnitude” above what it considers acceptable, the agency said.
My city has been making fertilizer from the sewage sludge for a century now.
Glad someone is!
It's much more efficient to shop fertilizer than lpg.
you dont want to use sewage/poop as fertilizer, you will be risking bacterial,viral and parasites from it.
As it's processed, it has to have pfas, microplastics, and heavy metals removed. That also sterilizes it.
As a Canadian I am all for selling our potash to just about anyone else.
They said they didn't need anything from us.
That includes military assistance and fertilizer.
Maybe we can bail them out...again.
Apparently farmers don't have bootstraps.
This is why you don't elect idiots
Almost as if this impending economic collapse of the USA is by design...
Smaller farms, maybe.
But Big Ag will just jack up prices while the little guy fails. Oh, look! Cheap farms to buy up!
Fertilizer isnt sustainable...
We're gonna run out, but before we do it's fucking up the entire ecosystem.
There's no way to sustain the population we have now, any that thinks we can isn't thinking on the right timelines.
We absolutely can sustain the population we have now. The majority of crops grown don't even go to humans.
Fertilizer is most definitely sustainable. Drowning your fields in it isn't. We will have energy to spare to produce nitrogen fertilizers. You don't need that much energy for that, just more than nothing.
Fertilizer is most definitely sustainable.
It's not, but luckily there's a way I'll never see another one of your unprompted and illogical opinions again.
Saskatchewan produces 30% of the world's fertilizer and it's nowhere close to the end yet.
The only problem for America is they have an idjit in power who can't see far enough ahead to NOT tariff the shit out of it.
Saskatchewan produces 30% of the world’s fertilizer and it’s nowhere close to the end yet
As I said:
any that thinks we can isn’t thinking on the right timelines.
I'm assuming you're talking about ammonia fertilizer tho.
Do you know that process requires fossil fuels?
Do you understand that burning fossil fuels isn't sustainable?
Phosphate and potash are both mined, and eventually we'll run out of that just like the liquid natural gas to get the ammonia. But we need all three in specif percentages, we can't just use any combination, they don't do the same thing...
Continuing to use fertilizer to support an ever expanding population is as sustainable as turning the AC up to mitigate climate change.
It only "works" if you don't understand the problem, unfortunately lots of people get belligerent when they realize they're not thinking thru something.
No. Please don't assume. Go find data that backs you up.
Ammonium sulfate and potash are both commonly used fertilizers in agriculture, but they have different compositions and functions. Ammonium sulfate is a nitrogen fertilizer that also contains sulfur, making it ideal for promoting plant growth and improving soil quality. Potash, on the other hand, is a potassium fertilizer that helps plants develop strong roots, resist disease, and improve overall health. While both fertilizers are essential for crop production, they serve different purposes and are often used in combination to provide plants with a balanced nutrient supply.
No
No what?
You linked a source saying that ammonium sulfate and potash are different and have different functions...
Which is what I said:
But we need all three in specif percentages, we can’t just use any combination, they don’t do the same thing…
I don't understand what you're trying to disagree with, or what "assumptions" you're talking about?
The only assumption I made was that you were talking about ammonia, but if that's what you meant your link makes zero logical sense...
What are you trying to say?