“Trucking is out of control,” said Jacki Sluis, Transportation Specialist at EC Grow. For how long and why remains a mystery. Driver shortages, goods demand, COVID, the housing boom? It is hard to isolate a direct cause to what equates to a substantial increase in lane rates.
When COVID hit, rates dropped to record lows. Fast forward ten months and trucks are harder to find with rates surging and becoming increasingly more volatile. “There is no shortage of freight,” Jacki said. “We don’t want to turn down trucks to any area as spring demand will make trucks harder to find.”
Jacki monitors what is produced and secures trucks based on requested delivery dates. As trucking lanes become available, Jacki may reach out to you to take product early—especially in highly competitive lanes. To ensure timely delivery, contact Jacki to move up your delivery date to beat the spring demand. “Even if you have room for a few loads you can take here or there, that will help” Jacki added.
As businesses navigate the changing landscape of what the pandemic affects, we all need to keep in mind that things are going to be different—at least for the foreseeable future. Decreased travel, virtual shows, inevitable quarantine of employees, supply issues. For those of us that have weathered the storm so far, patience is the “normal”.
As we look forward to spring, transportation deficiencies, packaging delays, and raw material shortages further impact an already stressed environment. EC Grow continues to tackle each of these issues and have built-in contingencies where available.
We want to reiterate the importance of working with our Transportation Team to secure loads when they become available. Having product in our warehouse does you no good if we cannot get it to you when you need it. Every season brings new challenges. In these uncertain times, patience will prevail.
“Ag dictates what happens with Urea nitrogen in the turf industry.” – Dispatch 2017
Never has that statement been truer than in 2020/2021. With the crop prices running up to multi-year highs, and the strongest farmer pre-pays for fertilizer in many years, the demand for inputs has exploded. In the last 2 weeks, Urea has traded up $60-$70+/ton and has continued to show strength. We are currently at a 3-year high. The last time we have seen prices this high was in 2014 when corn was above $5/bu and Urea traded at $400+/ton.
We are now the highest priced Urea in the world and exporters are trying to line up vessels to ship to the U.S.A. The adage of “high prices cure high prices” is in full effect but will take time.
Phosphates are way up this year as well. Mosaic has petitioned the federal government for a Countervailing Duty Claim against Russia and Morocco for sending Phosphate here and subsidizing it. While we waited for a judgment all summer/fall, nobody would send DAP/MAP to our country for fear of back charging the duty on previous ships that arrived. This created a shortage, and DAP has increased over $100/ton. They have now set the duty at +15% but will not have a final judgment until the end of March. When the final judgment is made, our market should return to normal imports with production and future pricing stabilizing.
Potash has been increasing this year as well. We hit multi-year lows in the summer of 2020, and since then, have been on a steady climb as supply fell short. Producers shut down their mines this fall for turnaround maintenance while farmers took advantage of a late fall to get in the fields. Ultimately, our country ran short with producers sold out until March causing the rise in price.
These products appear to have made their move up for spring and will probably be at these current prices until we reach a more normal Supply/Demand scenario. Hopefully, that occurs sooner rather than later, but only time will tell.
