The Coffee Talk Journal · Markets
Price Your Fertilizer in Bushels
Corn fell a dollar and fertilizer got harder to pay for. Josh Linville of StoneX on judging an input by the grain it takes to buy it, and why phosphate is so tight.
Corn fell a dollar, from $5.50 to $4.50, and fertilizer got harder to pay for whether its own price moved or not. That was the thread through everything Josh Linville of StoneX told Dean York on the October 29 Coffee Talk: a ton of fertilizer has two prices, the one on the invoice and the one in bushels.
The invoice price is the one everybody talks about. Dean brought a fresh one to the call: a recent urea bid of $915 a ton, against $700 earlier in the summer, and he asked where the new floor is. Josh took that to a different question. Who in this chain can actually do anything about a price?
His frame will outlast these numbers. A lower grain price can make a past fertilizer price feel far higher, even when the commodity itself hasn't changed. So weigh the input against the grain that has to pay for it, not against the number you remember.
Who can lock in a margin
Josh walked down the chain. Manufacturers and distributors can lock in margins. Retailers are price takers. Farmers hold something the others don't: they can set the input against the grain it will grow, and decide from there.
None of that makes the chain comfortable. Josh said the whole system is operating from fear, expecting lower supplies and higher logistics costs, and that a point of view can change in an instant with the next global event. He and Dean described credit lines and capital limits changing purchase plans at every layer, from importers through to farmers. Dean said manufacturers are looking for new retail partners to fill the holes left by failed distributors.
The hedge hardly anyone uses
The tool for this is plainer than it sounds. Buy an input and, at the same time, sell a corresponding amount of output, corn or wheat, and the margin between them is locked. Asked how many farmers do it, Josh estimated fewer than 10%, mostly larger growers.
He wasn't knocking anyone who waits. In a volatile market, he said, standing pat is a valid way to run the business, as long as it's a conscious call.
Potash was his example. With corn at $5.50, Josh said, potash values sat at historic lows. When corn fell to $4.50, potash moved into the highest 35% value tier, and he framed it as an attractive soil-building purchase. Read that as a dated example, not a call. The lesson is that the same ton landed in a different place because the grain moved.
What does a ton cost in bushels?
Loaded with two numbers from the call, Dean's $915 urea bid and $4.50 corn, only to show the arithmetic. Put in your own prices, both in the same currency. Then change just the grain price and watch the answer move.
bushels to buy one ton
Corn's slide did more than change the arithmetic. Josh called the drop a gut check: talk about next spring all but shut down until fall applications are done. Farmers are putting off spring fertilizer, and he said it's still unclear what fall demand will look like with ratios this high.
Why phosphate is the tight one
A ratio tells you how to judge a price. It doesn't explain the price. For phosphate, the explaining starts in China, the world's largest DAP and MAP exporter. Josh put its exports at 10 million tons in 2021 and just 187,000 tons from January through September of 2026. His read is protectionism: secure supply at home, lower local prices, keep things politically stable.
Josh Linville, StoneX, October 29, 2026
See the numbers
| Tons | |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 10 million tons |
| Jan to Sep 2026 | 187,000 tons |
Urea is running the other way, with Chinese exports up to 8 to 10 million tons. Josh described the urea market as quiet and rangebound, with North American values slipping internationally. Phosphate, he expects, stays home.
The deeper squeeze is sulfur. Half of the world's tradable sulfur moves through the Strait of Hormuz. Add Russia's export ban and, by Josh's count, two-thirds of the tradable supply is missing from the market, and that goes straight at phosphate production.
Reopening the Strait wouldn't end it. Josh warned that port loading, not vessel transit, would become the next bottleneck. And while Russian fertilizer and energy are still moving, he cautioned that any escalation or attack on export facilities could make things much worse. In his view, the industry hasn't seen the worst case yet.
Watch Dutch gas, not Henry Hub
Asked how natural gas ties to nitrogen prices, Josh said Henry Hub mainly benefits big domestic manufacturers like CVR, CF Industries and Nutrien, and doesn't reflect the world's peaks and valleys. The one to track is Europe's Dutch TTF, the high-cost producer's number, because that's what influences global supply and demand. Here's where things stood on the day of the call.
- $915
- Recent urea bid, per ton
- $4.50
- New crop corn
- $32
- Dutch TTF natural gas
$700 earlier in the summer
Down from $5.50
European plants at risk of winter shutdowns
Buying in layers
Josh's practical answer is to stop making it one big decision. Buy in increments rather than all at once, which averages out the swings. He said retailers welcome partial purchases, and his own family farm buys anhydrous, phosphate and potash this way.
The same thinking sorts the crop. Josh said safe-play fertilizer purchases should cover a baseline yield you can count on, such as 160 bushels of corn, and production above that can go toward higher-risk marketing. He also defended tiered selling, such as selling corn at $5.25 and $5.50, even with the risk of missing a higher peak.
Also on the call
- Biologicals. Dean asked if they're replacing synthetic nitrogen. Josh said products like Pivot Bio help free up soil nutrients, but they still pull from the soil, so those nutrients have to be replenished eventually.
- CBAM. The EU's carbon border tariff is a threat to Canadian exports, and emissions data that can't be verified gets a high-cost default value. Josh dismissed it, and green energy feasibility studies, as greenwashing driven by subsidies more than economics.
- Building at home. Josh argued the US and Canadian governments should back two to three world-scale nitrogen plants and partner with Norway, Saudi Arabia and Morocco on phosphate rock.
- The US election. Josh expects the result to have little direct effect on fertilizer markets.
Dean closed on the farmer's side of all this. Canola revenue is covering existing debts, and farmers are managing input purchases cautiously, waiting for a better signal before committing to contracts. That's a real position. Run the ratio, and you'll know what you're waiting for.
Worth keeping
- A fertilizer price is half a number. The other half is the grain that pays for it.
- Grain can make an input more expensive without the input moving.
- Doing nothing is a hedge. Make it a decision.
- Layers give up the perfect price to stay off the worst one.