How Fertilizer Affordability Moved Last Week

Fertilizer affordability continued to improve last week as a result of broader weakness in fertilizer prices, particularly in urea and phosphates, as we discussed in the earlier parts of this series. This index is calculated with fertilizer prices in the numerator and crop prices in the denominator. Last week’s improvement in fertilizer affordability came primarily from the weakness in fertilizer prices, while the crop prices remained unchanged week-over-week. Note that an index level of one indicates that the fertilizer price to crop affordability was the same as in the base year of 2005.