Ukraine tripled its imports of nitrogen fertilizers while reducing its domestic production by 4.6 times in 2022, Ukraine’s Ministry of Agrarian Policy said on Wednesday in a statement on the situation with fertilizers in Ukraine.
The ministry report states that in 2022, fertilizer imports in Ukraine increased by 3.1 times to 4.3 from 1.4 million tons and, at the same time, Ukraine only produced 1.13 million tons of nitrogen fertilizers, which is 4.6 times less compared to 5.2 million tons in 2021.
Fertilizer production from manufacturers such as Rivneazot, Severodonetsk Azot, Cherkasy Azot, and Dniproazot exceeded imports before the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to Dmytro Hordiychuk, head of Ukrainian information agency Infoindustry.
Meanwhile, Severodonetsk Azot stopped working completely and has been heavily damaged by Russian troops, leaving only two plants- Rivneazot and Cherkasy Azot-to continue to work, changes that significantly altered the market statistics for the worse.
Mykola Solskyi, the Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine, stressed that the issue of fertilizer shortages is one of the most crucial for the agricultural sector and Ukrainian farmers which are facing a spring sowing season with prices for ammonium nitrate skyrocketing from UAH 27,000 ($730) to UAH 37,000 ($1,000) per ton.
Solskyi explained that while prices were usually formed by farmers based on the rule that a ton of nitrate should not cost more than 2.5 tons of wheat and a ton of carbamide should not cost more than 3.0-3.5 tons of corn, in 2022, however, these figures were exceeded by two or three times.
Ukrainian farmers were able to buy fertilizers at pre-war prices until July 2022.
Since Ukraine is one of the leading countries in agriculture, global prices on the grain markets depend on its production so the whole world will be watching Ukraine’s spring sowing season.
