Global, legislative issues impacting input industry

DECATUR, Ill. — A 2025 outlook on crop protection products, fertilizer and government regulations was presented at the recent 4R Field Talk, hosted by the Illinois Soybean Association and Illinois Fertilizer and Chemical Association.

Kevin Johnson, IFCA president, doesn’t foresee any “serious hiccups” going into 2025 on the crop protection side, but fertilizer may be another story.

“We all know where commodity prices are and it definitely took a turn from planting season to where we’re at. Fertilizer is trying to figure out where its footing is at,” he said.

As of early fall, there is also an adequate supply of nitrogen, but then there’s the Russia situation.

“The No. 1 place we used to get ammonia from was Russia and the main way we got that was from a pipeline that ran from Russia to the Black Sea and that has been shutdown. That’s about 20% of the nitrogen market right there. That’s why we’re seeing some of the tightness, but I think the supply will be there,” Johnson continued.

The potash supply hinges on the ongoing labor negotiations in Canada to avert a railroad strike as 90% of that product used in the Midwest is from that country.

Progress continues in contract negotiations between Canadian Pacific Kansas City and Canadian National Railway and their largest union to avert a strike in Canada. There was a 16-hour work stoppage during a strike against the railways in late August.

Canadian Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon sent the stalled labor negotiations to binding arbitration and ordered a lockout of 9,300 rail workers to end immediately. There was also a three-day walkout of dock workers Sept. 30 to Oct. 2.

On Oct. 24, the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference reported the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service appointed an arbitrator in its collective bargaining with CPKC.

“If there is a rail strike, that is going to play into it. I think the potash market is in pretty decent shape. The only reason we see a potential difficulty is later on in the season,” Johnson said.

On the phosphate side, there’s a wait-and-see attitude in the fertilizer industry.

China is one of the largest producers of phosphate in the world and exports about 10 million tons to the United States on a five-year average. The Chinese government imposed measures on phosphate export quotas.

“They’re going to pull that back to 5 or 6 million tons of phosphate just because it’s used in the production of lithium batteries. China is seeing growth there and there’s higher demand,” Johnson said.

“The other thing that’s going into that is India buys a lot of phosphate from China and from other others across the world, and they have hardly bought any.

“Retailers usually start to buy in June, July and August. They kind of stayed away from some phosphate purchases just because of the higher prices.”

Dicamba

Dicamba registration and regulations has become a year-to-year issue, and the 2025 labels are pending U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approval.

“I think it’s a coin-flip if we have dicamba post-application in soybeans next year. All three registrants — Bayer, BASF and Syngenta — have re-applied for the label,” Johnson noted.

Bayer has asked for a pre-plant label with no applications post-emergence. Syngenta and BASF requested post-applications on their 2025 labels.

“Once those requests are sent to the EPA, it has 17 months to approve or deny the registration. That would already put us into July 2025. They can push that through, but I think they’re going to sit on it,” Johnson said.

“If we think we’re going to get a late-2024 approval, I think we’re lying to ourselves. If we get it, I don’t think it will be until late spring.”

Legislation

Johnson also reported on legislative issues at the state and federal levels that would impact agriculture inputs.

“There was a lot of anti-pesticide legislation in Springfield last year and we’re going to continue to watch for some of that in the fall veto session,” he said.

“There was proposed legislation to ban dicamba, ban 2,4-D, make everything restricted-use products. Keep an eye on what’s going on in Springfield. We always talk about national politics. We also need to look at the farm-related issues in the state legislature.

“The other thing that was proposed but did not moved is pesticide preemption. Most don’t know what pesticide preemption is, but it’s the most important thing we have in the industry. That mean that EPA regulates all pesticides and it comes down to the state level.

“In Illinois, it’s the Illinois Department of Agriculture who regulates that, but it’s not a city, county or municipality that regulates that.

“So, the city of Decatur or Champaign County can’t say they’re going to ban Roundup or ban dicamba. It is up to the Illinois director of agriculture. That would be the worse thing that could happen if we lose that.”

At the federal level, the EPA released its final Herbicide Strategy on Aug. 20 that protects over 900 federally endangered and threatened species from the potential impacts of herbicides.

EPA will use the strategy to identify measures to reduce the amount of herbicide exposures to those species when it registers new herbicides and when it reevaluates registered herbicides under registration review.

Applicator Licensing

IFCA is continuing to push for a change in the pesticide applicator licensing process that would include, if passed by the state legislature, the typical tests for first-timers followed by continuing education.

“What the means is you still have to take the test first no matter what, but going forward after that, you can take the test like you’ve always done or you can go to continuing education courses — probably five to seven hours a year,” Johnson noted.

“But then after three years if you keep those hours up, you don’t have to take the test every three years. There’s been a major push by IFCA and commodity groups to help get that done. It has to be done legislatively, so we’re going to be working with legislators and the Department of Ag to get that done this coming spring.”