Rail shipments are already starting to shut down ahead of a possible strike which could begin as early as this Friday. It couldn’t come at a worse time for agriculture. That’s why ag groups are urging Congress to help avert a strike, including The Fertilizer Institute.
Justin Louchheim, Senior Director, Government Affairs with The Fertilizer Institute says they’re already seeing rail shipments of fertilizer products like ammonia halted. The industry is preparing for the worst, but he says even a short-lived strike would be devastating for fertilizer movement for those producing this product. “There’s going to be questions they’re going to have to weigh like do they have alternative ways to transport ammonia or other fertilizers if we get down to all commodities being, the whole network being down for everything. How much site storage do they have to continue production. Do they have to slow down so they don’t have to do a compete facility closure and shutdown?”
Each day the rail network is shut down it equates to a week of no shipments and the timing could not be worse, on the cusp of harvest and fall fertilizer season. He says, “It’s not just about us getting inputs out to farmers, I mean our members getting fertilizer out to farmers when they need then for fall application that’s coming right now. So there are windows for these activities but there’s also all the farmers and the harvest and they have to bring those to market both domestic and international. Famine around the world is going to be a real serious thing for us to watch and take care of going forward for the next 12 months. So, we don’t need anymore geopolitical instability.”
Louchheim says fertilizer applications contribute to half of all crop yields...and there is already a global shortage with European fertilizer production down 50% as a result of record high natural gas prices. So, this type of catastrophic supply chain crisis would further impact global food insecurity.
