The price of chemical fertilizers has risen significantly, and the policy of ensuring supply and stable prices has frequently appeared——
Is there a guarantee for spring plowing fertilizer next year?
Our reporter Liu Jin
Since the beginning of this year, affected by various factors such as the promotion of production costs, global fertilizer prices have risen significantly, reaching a new high in the past 10 years.
What is the current domestic fertilizer price?
Will rising prices affect farmers' enthusiasm for growing grain?
Can the production and supply of chemical fertilizers for spring plowing be effectively guaranteed next year?
Record high prices
How much fertilizer prices have gone up?
Wang Zhengwu, who has been in the agricultural materials industry for almost 30 years, is the general manager of Hunan New Sanxiang Agricultural Materials Company of Hunan Supply and Marketing Cooperative, Yiyang Nan County Xin Sanxiang Agricultural Materials Company.
He told reporters that, except for one fertilizer price peak in 2008, fertilizer prices were relatively stable in most years.
"But this year the price has risen a lot." Wang Zhengwu calculated an account. According to the recent fertilizer prices, the cost of planting an acre of land would increase by about 50 yuan.
Zhu Lian, Chairman of the Board of Supervisors of China Agricultural Group Holdings Co., Ltd., told reporters that the overall supply of chemical fertilizers in my country is in a situation of "relatively excessive nitrogen and phosphorus production capacity, and potash fertilizer is partially dependent on imports", and the overall price is somewhat different from the international market.
The price of chemical fertilizers has been rising since the beginning of the year. In the second half of last year, the price of urea was 1,800 yuan/ton, and this year it rose to 3144 yuan/ton, a record high in the past 10 years.
In 2021, the fertilizer market will increase significantly, and the China Fertilizer Wholesale Price Composite Index (CFCI) issued by the China Agricultural Production Material Circulation Association can also be confirmed.
On December 6, the CFCI was 3039.70 points, a month-on-month increase of 22.22 points, an increase of 0.74%, and a year-on-year increase of 994.88 points, an increase of 48.65%.
Why is there such a significant rise?
Zhu Lian's analysis is mainly due to the superimposed influence of multiple factors.
On the one hand, the price of raw materials has risen significantly, and the prices of fertilizers such as coal, natural gas, and sulfur have risen sharply. At the same time, international nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium fertilizers have risen sharply, and the increase is higher than that of domestic ones, which has stimulated a significant increase in my country's fertilizer exports.
On the other hand, social inventories are at a low level.
During the spring plowing period, enterprises were highly motivated to sell chemical fertilizers. After the spring plowing ended, chemical fertilizer prices were running at a high level and the inventories were all consumed, resulting in lower levels of chemical fertilizer inventories than in previous years.
However, the price of chemical fertilizers has risen, and the overall operating rate of chemical fertilizer manufacturers has been on the low side.
Experts said that this is mainly due to factors such as high raw material prices, obvious fluctuations in fertilizer prices, and increased market risks.
The control effect appears
The price of chemical fertilizers has risen significantly, which has a negative impact on protecting farmers' enthusiasm for growing grain and maintaining national food security.
“Earlier this year, we discovered that the county’s original planting area of rape and lettuce was more than 200,000 mu. Due to the high price of chemical fertilizers, the planting area was reduced by one third.” Wang Zhengwu sighed, because of the rising costs, but profits. Not much, and some farmers have reduced the amount of fertilizer used, abandoning high-end fertilizers such as compound fertilizers and only using simple fertilizers.
In order to ensure the stable supply of domestic fertilizers and reasonable prices, relevant departments have repeatedly issued relevant control policies.
In July this year, the National Development and Reform Commission interviewed key fertilizer companies, and the participating companies said they would do their best to organize production and operation to ensure the supply of domestic fertilizer market.
The General Administration of Customs announced that, starting from mid-October, it has tried to order commodity inspections for 29 types of fertilizers involved in export.
As a result, my country has strengthened the quality management requirements for exporting chemical fertilizers, and has further alleviated the shortage of supply in the domestic market.
Beginning on October 19, the National Development and Reform Commission has successively introduced regulatory and regulatory measures for the coal and other fertilizer raw material industries.
On October 20, the National Development and Reform Commission opened an open auction to release the first batch of national reserve potash fertilizers.
Recently, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, the Ministry of Transport, and China Railway Group jointly issued the "Notice on Establishing a Special Team for Coordination and Guarantee of Fertilizer Production to Stabilize Fertilizer Supply for a Period of Time" and deploy local governments to establish fertilizer production coordination. In accordance with the principle of “one enterprise, one policy”, the special class of guarantee work actively helps key fertilizer production enterprises and coordinately solves the difficulties and problems that affect the improvement of the level of production.
It is understood that the key fertilizer manufacturers involved in the notice cover about 70% of the production capacity of urea and ammonium phosphate, and about 90% of the production capacity of potash fertilizer.
While grasping production and supply, in order to smooth the "last mile" of agricultural materials entering the village and households in a timely manner, the All-China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives has released a list of 139 key agricultural materials companies that guarantee the supply of agricultural materials in autumn, covering more than 3,700 agricultural materials throughout the system. Enterprises and more than 400,000 basic-level outlets can provide services such as nearby purchases, door-to-door delivery, and technical guidance.
Under the intervention of a number of regulatory and regulatory measures, the export of chemical fertilizers has recently decreased, and the price of urea in the domestic market has dropped rapidly.
On November 29, the latest agricultural materials bulletin issued by the All-China Supply and Marketing Cooperative Agricultural Materials and Cotton Bureau and the China Agricultural Production Material Circulation Association showed that the price of urea continued to fall slightly, the price of ammonium phosphate fell weakly, and the domestic potassium chloride price was generally Stable, compound fertilizer prices fell slightly.
At the same time, the retail price of urea in some parts of the country continued to fall.
Among them, Zhejiang, Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Guangdong, Shaanxi, Henan, Hunan, Liaoning, Anhui, Heilongjiang, Jiangsu, Yunnan, Hubei, Shanghai, Chongqing, Jilin, Guangxi, Fujian, Shanxi, Xinjiang and other 20 provinces, regions and municipalities urea retail price week The month-on-month drop was 14.32 yuan to 187.5 yuan/ton, and the prices in Beijing and Jiangxi provinces and cities rose by 100 yuan to 150 yuan/ton on a week-on-week basis, while prices in other regions remained stable.
Accelerate the guarantee
At present, the price of agricultural materials has begun to fall, and winter fertilizer reserves have gradually begun.
According to data from the China Nitrogen Fertilizer Industry Association, the national daily output of urea was 150,200 tons in late November, and the average operating rate of urea companies was 68.65%, an increase of 6.04 percentage points from the previous week. The market supply increased.
At the same time, due to capital turnover and uncertain market expectations, coupled with the fluctuating operation of raw material prices, downstream distributors have a certain wait-and-see mood for winter fertilizer reserves.
"Our warehouse inventory has also decreased slightly compared to previous years." Wang Zhengwu revealed that the company sells about 40,000 tons of fertilizers each year, accounting for more than half of the sales of agricultural materials in Nan County, Yiyang.
At present, some winter savings funds have been paid to manufacturers, and will be combined with the market outlook to wait for opportunities to replenish new sources and pull them back in time.
Zhu Lian said that in the face of the complex and changeable agricultural material market, China Agricultural Holdings is going all out to ensure the completion of winter planting and the smooth start of winter storage, and plan ahead for the spring ploughing market next year.
In the first 11 months of this year, the Zhongnong Agricultural Company under the China Supply and Marketing Group has supplied 22.14 million tons of chemical fertilizers, an increase of 6.75% year-on-year. Especially when the supply of potash fertilizer is slightly tight, it is imported from Ukraine and Laos through the China-Europe Express and China-Laos Railway. Potash fertilizer supplements domestic supply.
"During the winter storage period, we will do our best to build and reserve all kinds of spring fertilizers." Zhu Lian revealed that the innovative channel for potash fertilizer investment and storage will join hands with the national cotton trading market to do a good job in the online auction and transaction of national potash reserves, which will directly benefit the terminal. Farmers, fully protect the interests of farmers, this measure will play an important role in stabilizing the price of potash fertilizer and downstream compound fertilizer.
In response to the later trends of the fertilizer market and the problems in the current market, the All-China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperative Agricultural Materials and Cotton and Linen Bureau, and the China Agricultural Production Material Circulation Association suggest that we should continue to do a good job in ensuring the supply and price stability of raw materials such as coal and natural gas, and effectively guarantee it. The operating rate of urea and compound fertilizer production enterprises, and at the same time, actively do a good job in the negotiation of potash fertilizer contracts to effectively guarantee the supply of potassium chloride next year.
At present, the prices of agricultural materials are relatively high, and counterfeit and inferior commodities may be exploited. It is recommended that relevant departments jointly increase the efforts to combat agricultural materials.
At the same time, it is also recommended that the relevant state departments guide chemical fertilizer storage companies to actively and steadily carry out winter purchases and storage, and effectively guarantee the supply of chemical fertilizers for spring farming next year.