USDA Puts $573 Million Behind Eight Fertilizer Plant Projects

Eight fertilizer manufacturing projects totaling more than $1.34 billion in investment — including approximately $573 million in proposed USDA funding — were selected on Oct. 22 under the department's Fertilizer Investment and Expansion for Long-Term Domestic Supply (FIELDS) Program. Vice President J.D. Vance and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced the awards, which USDA projects will add roughly 1.08 million tons of annual domestic fertilizer capacity once operational.

Vance framed the stakes in grower terms. "1.87 million farmers who are farming over 8.74 million acres all across the United States of America are going to have fertilizer at lower costs that is made by Americans," he said in a news release.

What does the funding change for input costs?

Rollins tied the announcement directly to the input-price shock of 2022, when urea, potash, MAP, DAP, ammonia and UAN all spiked. Measured against those highs, she said, urea is down 52%, potash down 50%, ammonia down 42%, UAN down 39%, DAP down 19% and MAP down 18%. "Obviously, great progress, but we've got a good way to go to get it down even lower for our great American farmers," she said.

Once the projects run at capacity, Rollins expects the initial investments to "result in over a million tons of expanded annual domestic fertilizer production and capacity, including a 40% increase in domestic potash production, 4% increase in domestic nitrogen, 4.5% in nitrogen fertilizer price decreasing, and a 5% decrease in potash prices."

The supply-chain math behind the push is stark. America imports roughly half of the 20 million tons of fertilizer it uses each year, Rollins said, calling it "a daily threat to the security of our supply chain, and therefore a daily threat to our freedom." She also cited consolidation: four companies control about 77% of North American nitrogen capacity, two firms hold more than 90% of phosphate capacity, and two produce roughly 90% of North American potash.

How the projects break down

The eight selections, with proposed USDA funding and total project value:

• TalusAg — Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Tennessee, Nebraska, Illinois, South Dakota: $99.8 million federal share of a $270.2 million project; 20 modular ammonia units across 11 sites in seven states producing about 130,000 tons of anhydrous ammonia annually.
• Peace Valley — Bartow, Florida: $19.9 million of $50.6 million; roughly 250,000 tons annually of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and sulfur products.
• PCI Nitrogen — Pasadena, Texas, and St. Helens, Oregon: $100 million of $200 million; about 148,280 tons annually, including ammonium sulfate and urea.
• Intrepid Potash — near Carlsbad, New Mexico: $139 million of $265 million; a sulfate of potash facility producing roughly 220,000 tons annually.
• AdvanSix — Hopewell, Virginia: $47.4 million of $98.1 million; modernization and expansion expected to yield about 84,000 tons of anhydrous ammonia per year.
• SUL4R-PLUS Illinois — Marissa, Illinois: $34.9 million of $69.7 million; a new line and storage upgrades supporting about 100,000 tons of sulfur fertilizer annually.
• True Organic Products — Helm, California; Boardman, Oregon; Arlington, Arizona: $15.3 million of $30.6 million; roughly 142,805 tons annually from agricultural byproducts.
• Agriculture Project Holdco — Lewis, Kansas, and Fair Oaks, Indiana: $116.9 million of $360 million; dairy manure converted into approximately 4,100 tons of liquid ammonium nitrate per year.

The FIELDS Program is administered by USDA Rural Development's Rural Business-Cooperative Service using Commodity Credit Corporation authorities. It replaces and supplements the earlier $500 million FIELDS launch and redirects resources from the Biden administration's Fertilizer Production Expansion Program toward projects USDA says offer stronger financial viability, private-sector investment and measurable manufacturing outcomes — a contrast with earlier awards that struggled to reach construction and operation.

Prior actions already in motion

Beyond the new capacity, the administration has taken steps Rollins described as "a series of aggressive actions" on affordability:

• Import restrictions from Venezuela waived and countervailing duties on phosphate fertilizer lifted.
• Targeted Jones Act waivers moved nearly 150,000 metric tons of anhydrous ammonia and nearly 32,000 metric tons of MAP during supply disruptions.
• Hours-of-service flexibility lets farmers move fertilizer where they need it, especially before planting.
• Relaxed diesel exhaust fluid rules reduced repair costs and eased pressure on urea.
• The Interior Department designated phosphate and potash as critical minerals, and USDA launched new fertilizer transportation and pipeline rate data to improve market transparency.

"For the long term, we expect all of these prices to come down as we're reshoring fertilizer back to America," Rollins said, adding that the goal is input independence so America's ability to farm and feed itself is "no longer beholden to foreign nations and unstable global markets." USDA Rural Development will publish further details through www.rd.usda.gov as the selected projects advance toward construction.