The fertilizer industry and a raft of farm groups are backing legislation that would add phosphate and potash to the list of minerals considered “critical” to U.S. national security, arguing that too much of those crop inputs is located outside the country and vulnerable to supply shocks.
The U.S. Geological Survey’s latest critical minerals list, issued in 2022, includes 50 minerals, from aluminum to zirconium, but not the two crop nutrients. Potash was on the list in 2018 but did not appear four years later. Phosphate was not on either list.
Bills have been introduced in both houses of Congress to add the inputs, but rather than using a standalone bill, The Fertilizer Institute thinks the farm bill would have a better chance of success.
“The farm bill is kind of the No. 1 opportunity because it's clearly food-related,” said Ed Thomas, TFI vice president of government affairs, adding that it has had productive discussions on Capitol Hill.
“If we could designate phosphate and potash as a critical mineral, it would allow an acceleration of permitting for these two mined minerals in the U.S. that would basically create more product for growers to have,” TFI President and CEO Corey Rosenbusch told Agri-Pulse at this week’s National Association of Farm Broadcasting’s annual Washington Watch event.
He said that because critical minerals designations are made by USGS, which is in the Interior Department, the matter falls under the jurisdiction of the House Natural Resources Committee.
“We are working with the committee and with Chairman [Bruce] Westerman of Arkansas to see if they will allow that to be included in the farm bill and waive some of those jurisdiction elements,” Rosenbusch said.
“We’re hoping it can get into the Natural Resources Committee's hearing process quickly so that we can get that waiver, so that can be included in the farm bill,” he said. Westerman aides declined to speculate on the bill's prospects.
Corey Rosenbusch, TFIAs for phosphate rock, the basis of fertilizer such as diammonium phosphate (DAP) and monoammonium phosphate (MAP), Morocco holds about 70% of the world’s reserves. But China exports about 25% of all globally traded processed phosphates and Russian quotas on phosphate exports make that market “susceptible to supply shocks,” TFI said in a fact sheet.
TFI told USGS in 2021 that the U.S. has less than 2% of known global phosphate reserves and current estimates say “identified domestic reserves of phosphate ore will be exhausted in about 50 years. Moreover, net import reliance is expected to increase as a result of increased demand for phosphate needed for fertilizer to help feed a growing domestic and global population.”
As for potash, 93% is imported, mostly from Canada. However, Belarus and Russia provide a substantial proportion of world potash trade.
Rosenbusch said the Biden administration’s $500 million fertilizer grants program, while generally welcomed by industry, is geared more toward “furthering some of their climate-smart ag objectives.” He said most of those projects would not create significant new U.S. supply.
Designation as a critical mineral can help streamline permitting for mines and facilities that convert raw minerals into fertilizer that can be applied by farmers.
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“Listing as a critical mineral enables assigning related permitting to a single agency responsible for coordinating needed final approval, but it does not exclude those permits from environmental reviews,” TFI says in a fact sheet. “While most critical minerals are geared toward the electric vehicle supply chain, taking the step of adding phosphate and potash to the critical minerals list would send a positive market signal that the U.S. recognizes the importance of ensuring a strong and sustainable domestic fertilizer supply for American farmers.”
USGS uses three criteria in the Energy Act of 2020 to determine whether a mineral should be deemed critical: It must be “essential to the economic or national security of the United States,” the supply chain is “vulnerable to disruptions” and serves “an essential function in the manufacturing of a product,” including an agricultural product, “the absence of which would have significant consequences for the economic or national security of the United States.”
In reaching determinations on phosphate and potash, USGS said the risk of supply chain disruptions is low.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the war in Israel have had had big impacts on fertilizer supply chains, TFI and its allies say. There are “dozens of examples” of supply shocks, Thomas says.
In fact, he noted that the latest critical minerals list was issued Feb. 22, 2022, two days after Russia invaded Ukraine. Russia and Belarus, a Russian ally, supply about 41% of the world’s potash, Bruce Somers, president of the Utah Mining Association, told the House committee.
“So that has a resulting increase in fertilizer prices and availability around the world,” he said.
“Our agriculture producers live in a world where almost 50% of the global potash supply has been disrupted by war in Russia and Israel and almost one-third of the global phosphate supply is controlled by the Chinese,” Rep. Nick Langworthy, R-N.Y., said at a November hearing with Steve Feldgus, senior science advisor and principal deputy assistant secretary for land and minerals management at the Interior Department.
Feldgus agreed that both minerals “are essential, very important.” However, “when we talk about the definition of critical, we are really talking about meeting a certain threshold established by the U.S. Geological Survey according to their methodology.”
USGS said when it released the critical minerals list that potash had “very high trade exposure but low disruption potential, meaning the U.S. is reliant on trade for these mineral resources, but the likelihood of that trade being disrupted is low."
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