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Fertilizer prices cut by half this month


MANILA, Philippines - Fertilizer prices this month have gone down by as much as half of peak prices last September, the Agriculture department said in a press release Monday. The drop in fertilizer prices was due to easing prices of oil in the world market, the department explained. Reduced prices, in turn, is expected to encourage farmers to use more of the farm input in the current dry cropping season. "The global trend is downward adjustment in commodity prices, including fertilizers," Rolando T. Dy, executive director of the University of Asia and the Pacific’s Center for Food and Agribusiness, said in a phone interview Monday. For instance, prices of Triple 14 — so-called "complete fertilizer" for containing nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium — fell by 40.7% to P1,150 per 50-kilogram bag from P1,940/50kg bag in September. Similarly, average prices of ammonium sulfate, used in clay soils, dropped by 53% to P499/50kg bag from P1,065/50kg bag in the same comparative months. The prices of ammonium phosphate sulphate, used as a starter fertilizer in crops, were also cut by 18.4% to P1,150/50kg bag for the same periods. Urea, used during cultivation before planting, will be sold at P999/50kg bag early next year from P1,933/50kg bag in September, the statement said. "The entire industry will follow the price cuts," Agriculture Undersecretary Jesus Emmanuel M. Paras said in a phone interview, saying that the prices are those of Leyte-based Philippine Phosphate Fertilizer Corp., or Philphos. Philphos is the country’s main producer of chemical fertilizers with a capacity of 1.2 million metric tons of phosphatic fertilizers per year. It supplies fertilizers to Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brazil. "The softening of fertilizer prices will encourage farmers to plant more because access to farm inputs are more affordable," Mr. Dy said. He added that sugar, rice, corn, rubber, mango and coffee farmers, who plant their crops at the end of the year and early in January, are the ones who are expected to promptly benefit from the recent price cuts. The Agriculture department had reported a 30% drop in petrochemical fertilizer use by farmers in the July-September wet cropping season, as prices of these items, which account for up to 30% of crop production costs, had risen to record-high levels. The Bureau of Agricultural Statistics said in a crop forecast last month that it expects the country to miss the full-year palay production target of 17.3 million metric tons (MMT) by 2.36% at 16.89 MMT, while corn output is expected to fall short by 3.47% to 6.95 MMT from the already-adjusted target this year of 7.2 MMT, as farmers planted less for most of the year amid soaring fertilizer prices. — Neil Jerome C. Morales, BusinessWorld
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