WASHINGTON (DTN) -- National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) farmers and small fertilizer companies gathered with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Wednesday to announce a new $500 million investment in fertilizer infrastructure designed to expand domestic fertilizer production through the Fertilizer Investment and Expansion for Long-Term Domestic Supply (FIELDS) plan.

"We want fertilizer produced in America, and we want fertilizer delivered in America to American farmers," Rollins said.

The press conference introduced the new FIELDS Program, which repackages previously announced agency actions while redirecting Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) funds.

USDA officials said of the 121 fertilizer production projects inherited from the previous administration, 90 lacked signed agreements and only eight have been completed. The department plans to revive some stalled initiatives, expedite permitting to increase production capacity, and redirect funding from projects the agency no longer considers feasible into the new $500 million program.

The agency is de-obligating funding from the Biden administration's Fertilizer Production Expansion Program (FPEP) and combining those funds with additional CCC resources administered through USDA Rural Development.

Specifically, USDA will offer grants ranging from $15 million to $150 million for both new and existing fertilizer production facilities. For comparison, a 2023 Simplot fertilizer expansion project cost about $150 million.

Deputy Secretary Stephen Vaden said the program is focused on the quality, not quantity, of investments, while declining to specify exactly which types of facility upgrades would qualify. The program is designed to ensure private financing is committed before USDA steps in. Applicants must provide a 50% private-sector match.

Rollins said many de-obligated projects involved spending on "worms and flowerpots and kombucha."

"We are obviously pulling all of that back," she said, calling it "lots of climate language craziness."

Standing behind Rollins during the announcement, however, was True Organic Products Inc., an organic fertilizer company from California that had previously received funding under FPEP.

A senior USDA official said projects moving forward must "have all the financial backing moving forward" and submit the required paperwork, adding that the de-obligated funds came from projects the department no longer considers "feasible projects."

USDA will accept applications for 45 days and hopes to announce awards in September or October.

Rollins also addressed President Donald Trump's recent suspension of countervailing duties (CVDs) on imports from Morocco. She said the move would reduce phosphate prices by 22%, affect 100,000 farms, and generate $1.82 billion in additional economic output by the end of 2026.

Retail phosphate fertilizer prices were mixed in the last week of June, according to DTN's Fertilizer Editor Russ Quinn. MAP rose modestly to an average of $954 per ton, while DAP slipped slightly to $910 per ton compared to the previous month.

See "Urea, UAN Fertilizers Leads Majority of Fertilizers' Prices Lower," https://www.dtnpf.com/….

Rollins also said she will travel to Louisiana in three weeks for the groundbreaking of the Blue Point Project, which she called the largest ammonia plant in the world.

ATTRACTING PRIVATE CAPITAL

Securing private investment has been a challenge, said Joshua Westling, CEO of J. Westling and Company. In Nebraska, he is developing Project Meadowlark, a fertilizer facility that will produce and distribute liquid nitrogen fertilizer directly to the Corn Belt.

"USDA changed the message that domestic demand would always be met by overseas production, by putting American production at the center of this agenda and made it possible for projects like ours to attract the private capital and lenders it takes to actually get built," he said.

Westling recently testified before the Senate Agriculture Committee in May.

Deputy Secretary Vaden described the administration's plan of fertilizer with two pathways. "The President has taken care of short-term needs of our farmers by suspending the counterbalance duties on imports from Morocco, and we're here today working on medium- and longer-term issues," he said.

CORN FARMERS WELCOME COMPETITION

Matt Frostic, National Corn Growers Association first vice president and a corn farmer from Applegate, Michigan, attended the event to support the announcement.

"I'm not in the fertilizer industry, but I want fertilizer to succeed, because if they succeed, I succeed," he told DTN.

He said the current cost differential remains out of balance and farmers need more competition in the fertilizer marketplace.

Despite the relatively small investment compared to the size of the multibillion-dollar fertilizer industry, he said the program could still help encourage additional competition because, "in a capitalist economy that we're in, it has headwinds."

The administration said the $500 million investment is intended to strengthen domestic fertilizer production, build more resilient supply chains, lower long-term costs for farmers and prioritize "shovel-ready projects."

"We'll continue to focus on and make sure that we're doing everything we can that as the orders start going in this fall, September, October, for next year's planting season, that we are acutely aware of where those are, that we're working with our partners on the ground," Rollins said.

On what is preventing higher fertilizer prices, Rollins pointed to The Mosaic Company's decision to defer maintenance at one of its facilities, a move she believes could help prevent prices from rising further ahead of the next purchasing season.

See "President Waives Phosphate Duties," https://www.dtnpf.com/….

Jake Zajkowski can be reached at jake.zajkowski@dtn.com

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