A senior executive with the American Farm Bureau Federation recently floated an idea that won’t sit well with many Canadian farmers.
John Newton, vice-president of public policy and economic analysis with the bureau, thinks the United States should strongly consider restricting its fertilizer exports.
WHY IT MATTERS: Canada is the single largest buyer of U.S. fertilizer exports, accounting for 38 per cent of all U.S. fertilizer exported in 2025.
“In times like today, you start to wonder, ‘Do we need strategic reserves’?” he told delegates attending the 2026 Agri-Pulse Ag & Food Policy Summit in Washington, D.C.
He noted that China and other exporting nations do it, so why shouldn’t the U.S. follow suit
The U.S. ships 10 to 12 million tonnes of fertilizer per year, and any restriction on that flow would land directly on Ontario and Prairie producers already contending with elevated input costs. A strategic reserve policy would give the U.S. government a mechanism to prioritize domestic supply — cutting export availability at exactly the moments when Canadian demand is highest, such as pre-seeding.
What’s driving the push
Newton said he and bureau president Zippy Duvall have met with John Boozman, chair of the U.S. Senate committee on agriculture, where they mentioned the idea of establishing a strategic fertilizer reserve.
U.S. farmers have been hit hard by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz due to the conflict in Iran. Newton said 49 per cent of the global urea trade moves through that strait, and urea prices in Illinois have jumped US$230 per ton since the closure of the strait. There has not been a two-week price spike of that magnitude in the past 20 years.
Diesel prices were up $1.09 per gallon in Illinois, the highest monthly jump in history.
“This will put a squeeze on farmers when they’re already feeling a squeeze,” said Newton.
He said he cannot think of a crop American farmers can grow profitably under today’s market conditions. Input costs are up roughly 40 per cent — about $135 billion — since 2015, while crop prices have been trending down since 2021-22.
So how have American farmers been surviving?
The answer is government support. U.S. farmers received $125 billion in ad hoc payments between 2017 and 2024.
“Continued ad hoc support is not the solution,” said Newton.
“We have to find another way.”
How U.S. farmers have stayed afloat
The short answer is government support. U.S. farmers received $125 billion in ad hoc payments between 2017 and 2024.
“Continued ad hoc support is not the solution,” said Newton. “We have to find another way.”
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act is part of that answer, but many of its farm program enhancements don’t take effect until this fall. Farmers will need another ad hoc payment to bridge the gap.
The long-term play: domestic demand
The real solution, Newton argued, is to expand domestic demand for U.S. crops, because competition in the export market has become too fierce to win on volume alone.
Brazilian farmers will likely export more soybeans than American farmers produce in the 2026-27 crop year. On top of that, global population growth is stalling — China’s population peaked in 2021, the European Union’s in 2020 — which means export demand is not going to carry U.S. agriculture out of its current difficulties.
The path forward, in Newton’s view, runs through the U.S. biofuel sector.
E15 they key to biofuel expansion
Year-round consumption of 15 per cent ethanol blends — known as E15 — would increase corn consumption by the ethanol industry by 50 per cent, and Newton said approval is closer than it has ever been.
“We’re very, very close on year-round E15,” he said. “Closer than ever.”
“The focus on rebuilding domestic demand for agriculture is critically important for our success moving forward, given the competitive environment that we’re in and given the tight margin environment we continue to face,” said Newton.
The urgency is real. The U.S. has lost 199,000 farms over the past 10 years.
“If we don’t do something to reverse this course, we are going to continue to see more farm operations go out of business,” said Newton.
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