Growing the Future

Fertilizer Rant with Mario Gaudet and Josh Linville

Episode Summary

The fertilizer market is broken. Urea has nearly doubled since December, elemental sulfur has gone from $70 to nearly $600 a ton, and the Strait of Hormuz closure is cutting off 40–50% of global sulfur supply right before spring planting. Dan sits down with Mario Gaudet from Busy Salt and Josh Linville, VP of Fertilizer at StoneX, to make sense of what's happening, what it means for Canadian and American farmers, and what to do about it.

Episode Notes

Spring 2026 is arriving with a fertilizer market that looks nothing like anything most producers have seen. Urea at $700 a short ton. Elemental sulfur up nearly 8x in 18 months. Global ammonia production down 30–35%. China not exporting. India running at 50–60% production capacity because they can't get LNG shipments through the Persian Gulf. And retailers across Saskatchewan are 30–40% behind on bookings.

Josh Linville, one of the most followed voices in fertilizer on X, joined from a ski condo in Colorado. Mario Gaudet has been in the thick of the elemental sulfur trade and has the kind of inside knowledge that doesn't show up in the headlines. Together, they broke down what's actually happening, what even the best-case scenario looks like if the Strait reopens tomorrow (answer: not great), and what decisions producers need to be making right now.

This one got into places you don't hear about in mainstream ag media. Why you can't have a green energy mandate without oil and gas refining. Why Morocco building a massive triple super phosphate plant now looks like genius. Why the US imports over 5 million tons of urea per year when North America is sitting on some of the cheapest natural gas in the world. And why the retailer down the road isn't willing to hold inventory anymore, even if he thinks you're going to need it.

The practical advice coming out of this conversation was clear: talk to your retailer now, build a forecast together, buy in chunks to spread your risk, and don't cut the nutrition inputs that will cost you two bushels of corn per acre to save $5 upfront. As Josh put it, the market is undefeated, and nobody has ever sold every bushel of grain in one shot. Why would fertilizer be any different?

Timestamps

• [00:00:46] Setting the stage: Urea nearly doubled since December, global ammonia down 30–35%, spring is here
• [00:02:16] Josh Linville's call: the worst economic environment for farmers he's ever seen
• [00:05:18] Josh joins from a ski condo in Colorado; the market doesn't stop
• [00:06:04] Audience poll: Where are you at with your 2026 crop plan?
• [00:09:34] Mario's rant begins: how elemental sulfur went from $70 to nearly $580 a ton
• [00:10:31] The connection nobody's making: sulfur, battery production, lithium, and why green mandates need oil and gas
• [00:13:34] Geopolitics, the Strait of Hormuz, and 40–50% of global sulfur supply at risk
• [00:14:33] The 10-million-ton sulfur stockpile in Fort McMurray and why it can't get to market
• [00:15:40] Buying patterns: how procrastinating on fertilizer decisions became the industry's biggest self-inflicted wound
• [00:19:39] Josh on sulfur: how cleaner air created a new farm input problem
• [00:20:46] Phosphate and the Strait: Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, three of the top 10 anhydrous exporters, all behind the closure
• [00:22:23] Tampa Index negotiations, phosphate production costs, and why summer fill pricing won't go down
• [00:23:22] Josh: we have already seen the cheapest phosphate price we are going to see
• [00:25:20] Even when the Strait reopens, the tail of this thing will last longer than people think
• [00:28:29] Morocco's triple super phosphate expansion: playing chess while everyone else played checkers
• [00:30:21] How high input costs are going to change what farmers buy this season
• [00:34:15] Josh's biggest rant: don't make a cut that feels good today and feels terrible in October
• [00:40:17] Alberta's 10-million-ton sulfur block, the LNG pipeline we didn't build, and the opportunity we've squandered
• [00:43:13] Is this the moment North America gets serious about fertilizer self-sufficiency?
• [00:45:21] The global food security conversation: who really pays when fertilizer prices go to the moon
• [00:48:31] Iran, the Strait, and the proxy war between the US and China
• [00:49:20] Why N-46 is at $1,250 Canadian when we make it in Indian Head, SK
• [00:54:04] Final advice from Mario: talk to your retailer, forecast what you need, buy in chunks
• [00:55:19] Final advice from Josh: no farmer sells all their grain at once, so stop treating fertilizer differently

Connect with our guests:

• Josh Linville, VP of Fertilizer at StoneX. Follow him on X for daily fertilizer market updates: @JoshLFert
• Mario Gaudet, Busy Salt. Elemental sulfur supply across North America

Growing the Future platform partners:

• Crop-Aid Nutrition, soil health and crop nutrition: cropaidnutrition.com
• Hammond Realty, Saskatchewan agricultural real estate, succession and tax planning: hammondrealty.ca
• Gripp, farm management software for tracking equipment, logging maintenance, and keeping your team aligned: gripp.ag
• Bone Trail Originals, handcrafted live edge resin art from a 110-year-old family farm in Saskatchewan: bonetrail.store

Growing the Future:

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