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Nutrien (NYSE:NTR), the world’s top producer of crop nutrients, believes fertilizer demand is just now starting to stabilize after the shocks of recent years that caused wild profit swings, CEO Ken Seitz told Bloomberg in an interview Friday.
“We are looking at demand that is after a very volatile period, with some demand destruction, that is only today returning to sort of trend levels,” Seitz said, noting that current fertilizer prices are below the 10-year average.
Nutrien (NTR) has found a particularly sore spot in Brazil, where surging interest rates have made a glut even more difficult to manage; Seitz said farmers are now turning to just-in-time purchases, adding that a pesticide glut will take the rest of this year and possibly into 2025 to be resolved.
In Argentina, where Nutrien (NTR) is seeking to sell its agriculture retail operations and considering options for its 50% interest in the Profertil urea and ammonia venture, the challenge of repatriating dollars is a key problem because of Argentina’s currency controls, the CEO told Bloomberg.
“We don’t see any indication that anything is going to change” in Argentina under the new administration of President Javier Milei, Seitz said.