Fertilizer prices are high ahead of the seeding season and show no signs of slowing down.
The exact price depends on the supplier farmers deal with, but it's widely acknowledged that they were higher compared to a few months ago.
For example, Kevin Hursh of SaskAgToday.com looking at nitrogen fertilizer prices recently and saw urea quoted at around $1200 a tonne; it's lowest point was around $780 last summer.
President of APAS Bill Prybylski farms in the Willowbrook area in east-central Saskatchewan. He says fuel and fertilizer are two of his biggest expenses but managed to get his fertilizer early.
"I just did a quick review of what I paid for some fertilizer in the fall compared to what it's valued at now, and it is shocking really the amount that it has risen in the last couple of weeks," said Prybylski. "It's going to be pretty significant for a lot of farmers already looking at tight margins, and this is going to make those margins even tighter. There’s going to have to be some serious decision making for a lot of farmers as to how do they deal with the current prices."
During a news conference on Monday, Provincial Agriculture Minister David Marit said he has talked to a few producers about it.
"I was just talking to some of my friends on the weekend, and a lot of them had already locked in their fertilizer price last fall," Marit said. "Fuel price the same way. I've heard a lot of producers had locked in their price last fall and had bought some of that."
Marit is hoping to see prices for fuel and fertilizer come down.
While there are other factors contributing to the rising cost of fertilizer, such as inflation and supply and demand, conflict in the Middle East has also accelerated the increase.
