Ranked: The Countries That Dominate the Fertilizer Trade

Who Leads the Global Fertilizer Trade?

The global food supply depends on a fertilizer trade concentrated among a relatively small group of countries.

Farmers use fertilizers to replenish nutrients and support crop growth. Producing them at scale depends heavily on access to key mineral deposits and energy resources.

This visualization ranks the world’s largest fertilizer exporters using the latest figures available (2024) from the Food and Agriculture Organization. It combines nitrogen, phosphate, and potash exports, measured by nutrient content rather than the full weight of fertilizer products.

The Big Four Fertilizer Exporters

Global fertilizer exports topped 113.3 million tonnes in 2024, with the four largest exporters accounting for more than half of the total.

Russia leads the ranking with 23.2 million tonnes, followed by Canada (14.4 million), Morocco (12.2 million), and China (10.1 million).

The table below ranks the world’s top fertilizer exporters in 2024 based on total tonnes exported.

Rank	Country	2024 fertilizer exports (tonnes)
1	Russia	23,234,623
2	Canada	14,419,294
3	Morocco	12,154,362
4	China	10,126,069
5	U.S.	6,372,572
6	Saudi Arabia	5,589,139
7	Germany	3,136,446
8	Israel	2,782,901
9	Qatar	2,471,034
10	Belarus	2,436,719
11	Netherlands	2,244,415
12	Egypt	1,910,594
13	Belgium	1,830,168
14	Algeria	1,753,242
15	Oman	1,649,407
16	Norway	1,641,508
17	Laos	1,629,908
18	Nigeria	1,415,355
19	Poland	1,070,679
20	Malaysia	1,061,170
21	Turkmenistan	1,024,841
22	Spain	865,510
23	Indonesia	748,316
24	Lithuania	727,186
25	Trinidad and Tobago	689,636
26	Vietnam	610,681
27	Chile	601,601
28	Türkiye	513,686
29	Brunei	497,215
30	Jordan	433,747
31	Bulgaria	381,202
32	South Korea	374,965
33	Slovakia	360,260
34	Uzbekistan	359,536
35	Bahrain	318,528
36	France	301,235
37	Italy	297,626
38	Venezuela	276,721
39	Australia	271,208
40	UK	265,615
41	Bolivia	263,910
42	Kazakhstan	260,759
43	Azerbaijan	259,871
44	South Africa	254,092
45	Greece	245,335
46	Tunisia	223,833
47	Brazil	205,427
48	Sweden	201,946
49	Thailand	198,058
50	Serbia	184,174
51	Portugal	175,072
52	Hungary	174,732
53	India	155,111
54	Czechia	145,631
55	Georgia	131,526
56	Taiwan	124,326
57	Mexico	121,036
58	Japan	105,137
59	Romania	95,519
60	Côte d’Ivoire	94,742
61	Croatia	86,147
62	Latvia	64,310
63	Slovenia	59,726
64	Lebanon	59,118
65	Finland	51,017
66	Colombia	40,997
67	Namibia	40,182
68	Honduras	36,650
69	Mozambique	34,813
70	Tanzania	29,417
71	Denmark	29,249
72	Senegal	28,976
73	Kenya	28,094
74	Dominican Republic	22,095
75	Peru	21,757
76	United Arab Emirates	20,627
77	Guatemala	19,637
78	Ghana	19,325
79	Philippines	19,041
80	Iran	16,938
81	Austria	15,574
82	Singapore	15,198
83	Ireland	14,811
84	Madagascar	14,692
85	Costa Rica	13,587
86	Ukraine	13,291
87	Mali	13,089
88	Luxembourg	12,538
89	El Salvador	12,420
90	Eswatini	9,464
91	Uruguay	7,628
92	Estonia	6,768
93	Panama	4,340
94	Guyana	3,527
95	North Macedonia	2,869
96	Ecuador	1,585
97	Bosnia and Herzegovina	1,543
98	North Korea	1,265
99	Hong Kong	1,244
100	Kuwait	1,237
101	Malawi	1,000
102	Paraguay	972
103	Bahamas	884
104	Syria	612
105	Angola	583
106	Iraq	579
107	Pakistan	570
108	New Zealand	543
109	Burkina Faso	539
110	Cameroon	523
111	Tajikistan	450
112	Libya	349
113	Uganda	334
114	Switzerland	327
115	Togo	315
116	Botswana	233
117	Moldova	232
118	Kyrgyzstan	176
119	Mauritius	155
120	Bangladesh	131
121	Armenia	116
122	Gambia	101
123	Benin	54
124	Jamaica	42
125	Albania	36
126	Liberia	20
127	Congo	18
128	Cyprus	9
129	DR Congo	8
130	Palestine	8
131	Cuba	6
132	Niger	6
133	Cambodia	3
134	Montenegro	3
135	Sri Lanka	2
136	Suriname	1
	Total	113,373,883

These totals combine different parts of the fertilizer industry, each supplying essential nutrients for agriculture. Potash supplies potassium, while phosphate fertilizers supply phosphorus. Nitrogen fertilizers follow a different production process.

As a result, strength in one fertilizer category does not necessarily translate to strength in another. The four leading exporters dominate different parts of the market.

Mining Potash and Phosphate

Canada’s position starts underground. Its potash industry draws on extensive deposits in Saskatchewan, giving the country an advantage that producers without comparable resources cannot easily replicate.

Canada supplies over 70% of the potash consumed in the United States. Efforts to replace Canadian supply with smaller producers, such as Belarus (2.4 million tonnes), therefore face significant logistical challenges.

Morocco, meanwhile, is a major producer of phosphate rock. State-owned OCP Group mines the resource and processes it into phosphoric acid and phosphate fertilizers. OCP alone holds over 30% of the global phosphate market, generating revenue of nearly $10 billion in 2024.

Energy-Intensive Nitrogen Production

For nitrogen fertilizer, the constraint is different. Nitrogen is abundant in the air, but converting it into ammonia, the starting point for mineral nitrogen fertilizers, requires substantial energy and a source of hydrogen.

Natural gas commonly provides both the fuel and the raw material needed to produce that hydrogen. Access to relatively low-cost gas has helped Russia, along with exporters such as Qatar (2.5 million tonnes) and the U.S. (6.4 million tonnes), expand ammonia production.

China, meanwhile, developed much of its ammonia industry around abundant coal supplies instead. The country produces more coal than the rest of the world combined.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

To see how one major market has maintained demand for fertilizer, check out EU Has Continued to Buy Russian Fertilizer Throughout War on Voronoi.

• Source: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-the-countries-that-dominate-the-fertilizer-trade/