{"id":117139,"date":"2021-06-25T03:39:07","date_gmt":"2021-06-25T03:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/?p=117139"},"modified":"2021-06-25T03:39:07","modified_gmt":"2021-06-25T03:39:07","slug":"worldwide-commodities-boom-drives-fertiliser-prices-to-10-year-highs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/business\/worldwide-commodities-boom-drives-fertiliser-prices-to-10-year-highs\/","title":{"rendered":"Worldwide commodities boom drives fertiliser prices to 10-year highs"},"content":{"rendered":"
The world-wide commodities boom has driven world fertiliser prices to 10-year highs.<\/p>\n
Global food prices have recorded their biggest annual rise in a decade, driven in part by China’s soaring appetite for grain and soyabeans<\/span> and a severe drought in Brazil, which has put fertiliser in hot demand.<\/span><\/p>\n The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said global food prices rose last month at their fastest monthly rate in more than a decade, even as world cereal production was on course to reach a new record high.<\/p>\n The FAO’s Food Price Index averaged 127.1 points in May, 4.8 per cent higher than in April and 39.7 per cent higher than in May 2020.<\/p>\n A surge in the international prices of vegetable oils, sugar and cereals led the increase in the index, which tracks monthly changes in the international prices of commonly-traded food commodities, to its highest value since September 2011 and only 7.6 per cent below its all-time peak in nominal terms, the FAO said in a report.<\/p>\n Mike Whitty, general manager supply chain for the farmer-owned fertiliser co-op, Ravensdown, said fertiliser prices had been unusually strong on the back of higher food demand.<\/p>\n “What we have seen is significant demand for food and you require nutrient to produce food.<\/p>\n “That’s come off a pretty depressed market over the last couple of years, both economically and climatically,” he said.<\/p>\n The commodities boom had come at a time when inventories for grains and other commodities were low, coupled with significant demand coming from North America, Brazil and India.<\/p>\n “It’s on the back of very good food prices for commodities, such as grains,” Whitty said.<\/p>\n “Countries are looking to build up their inventory of food, so what we are seeing is a major squeeze in the market since early this year.<\/p>\n “Right around the world farmers are looking to meet that demand and so nutrient is key to providing the food that everybody wants.”<\/p>\n The price of DAP – or di-ammonium phosphate – a widely used fertiliser that is manufactured overseas and imported into New Zealand – has hit a 10-year high of nearly $1000 a tonne – up from $800\/tonne a year ago.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n “It is quite consistent across all of the major products – potash DAP, urea, sulphur – they are all at 10-year highs now.<\/p>\n “We look at these things on a daily basis and the sheer pace of the increase has been somewhat surprising,” Whitty said.<\/p>\n In addition, freight rates were firming significantly as the world’s supply chain struggled to normalise in the wake of Covid-19.<\/p>\n Rates for containerised freight are up by 300 to 400 per cent and the same goes for bulk cargo after a period of low demand over the two years prior to Covid-19.<\/p>\n “With economies starting to come out of Covid being supported by governments, the demand has spiked significantly.<\/p>\n “We are seeing freight rates for bulk vessel on a hirage basis three times where they were last year.”<\/p>\n Urea has gone from $600 a tonne to $800\/tonne.<\/p>\n UK-based commodities research house ICIS said international fertiliser markets are experiencing an unseasonal boost in prices and demand, with some prices hitting historical highs.<\/p>\n “The major question now for producers, traders, co-operatives and farmers, is if current levels will be sustained and what availability will look like moving through the second half of 2021,” ICIS said in a report.<\/p>\n “While some markets are exclusively impacted by production cuts, rising feedstock costs, sanction cuts, rising freight rates, a major driver giving the market confidence is record crop prices,” it said.<\/p>\n The unabated strength of ammonia, which has also been driving the price up for urea and nitrates, looked to remain a challenging market, where, on almost a daily basis, production problems are announced, it said.<\/p>\n Higher commodities prices have prompted talk that the world might be on the verge of a commodities supercycle.<\/p>\n Early this year, Goldman Sachs said: “Looking at the 2020s, we believe that similar structural forces to those which drove commodities in the 2000s could be at play.”<\/p>\n Goldman’s supercycle view is based on how the world will recover from the Covid-19 crisis with an emphasis on a green industrial revolution and a policy focus on social need.<\/p>\n