Could the war and sanctions explain the shortages of farm inputs etc?

[Guest]

You could be right. Some false economies could very well vaporize

[shtferbrains]

You could be right. Some false economies could very well vaporize

An example of a false economy is ammonia production in Europe.

Here's what they think the solution is;

The fertilizer industry’s production processes are energy-intensive, with high levels of process emissions.
Natural gas is used as a raw material to produce ammonia, the building block for all mineral nitrogen fertilizers.

As the largest industry sector consumer of natural gas, the EU nitrogen fertilizer industry’s competitiveness is
predominantly driven by affordable and fair gas prices. Given that typically 60% to 80% of production costs are natural gas costs, it is vital that that the EU addresses the industry’s competition concerns and enables the free flow of gas at competitive prices in European gas markets.



Strong enforcement of EU competition rules, well-targeted European and local energy legislation and its consistent implementation are vital in order to achieve this objective.

A reformed WTO should include an agreement on energy outlawing unfair state price fixing and subsidisation, dual-pricing and other forms of harmful discriminatory pricing.

In relation to the EU’s own correction of unfair trade, it is imperative that the EU institutions continue to develop effective and efficient trade defence instruments able to correct structurally distorted gas prices.



So as always the EU will create high cost production then protect it with high tariffs.

Some of that ammonia production could come to Canada if we had any kind of endorsement from the federal legislators.
At this this time probably zero consideration given to Canada for investment.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

I just saw this on New Ag talk.

That doesn't sound very optimistic.
The most surprising part is 80 employees for 3,700 acres. That is one employee for every 46 acres, unless it's a typo.

[agstar77]

In an article from Reuters. Shortage of fuel. Some have scavenged fuel from abandoned Russian fuel tankers. Also fuel in ditches when rail tank cars destroyed. This can't bode well for a harvest or planting in Ukraine.