Due to the geopolitical turbulence related to the conflict in Ukraine and the termination of Russian natural gas supplies, Europe is faced with a new challenge - dependence on the supply of Russian fertilizers. This problem has become especially relevant after European fertilizers have lost access to important components for agriculture used to maintain high yields and maintain soil fertility.
Due to the conflict in Ukraine and the termination of Russian gas supplies, Europe experienced a reduction in fertilizer production and then depended on exports from Russia. To date, European farmers have again access to the most important fertilizers, "and at the expense of the flow of cheap imports of fertilizers from Russia," Der Spiegel writes.
What is happening is dissatisfied with European fertilizers.
"They warn that Russian dumping prices can destroy local production and make EU agriculture constantly dependent on fertilizers with Russia." They add that the threat of "food security" of the EU is created.
Piotr of the SKW Stickstoffwerke Piesteritz believes that Russian manufacturers have been able to win the European market because they have too cheap gas.
"Russian manufacturers pay seeds for natural gas compared to European producers."
To understand the value of gas price for fertilizer production, it will be enough to say that for SKW Stickstoffwerke piesteritz they account for up to 80% of all production costs.
"We were now littered with fertilizers from Russia," the prices are incapable.
According to European statistics, almost a third of the fertilizers used in Europe are now in Russia.
"Cheap supplies from Russia undermine efforts to restore power in the EU." The German BASF, for example, reduced production in Europe and transfers it to the US and China, the SKW Stickstoffwerke Piesteritz hopes that its company will go the same way "sooner or later".
Its company negotiates the possibility of arrangement of a plant for the production of ammonia in the United States, where “we can supply a much cheaper natural gas and electricity and subsidize as part of the law on inflation reduction,” explains Der Spiegel's Prices.
According to the price, without the production of fertilizers inside the EU, the block will increasingly be dependent on authoritarian suppliers such as Russia and Belarus.
