US sanctions could cause chaos on Latam farms run on Russian fertilizers

Latin American farmers are in for a rough ride if the U.S. slaps secondary sanctions on buyers of Russian exports, such as the fertilizers essential for cash crops from Mexican avocados to Brazilian soybeans and corn. For farm powerhouse Brazil, which covered about a third of its fertilizer demand with $3.7 billion of imports from Russia last year, there is virtually no alternative to fill the gap if those flows are halted, experts and industry players said. The 2022 outbreak of war in Ukraine triggered stockpiling of Russian fertilizer in the region. Prices soared briefly, but trade has now normalized. Plans to boost domestic fertilizer production in Mexico and Brazil have made slow progress in the face of relatively cheap Russian imports. Shipments to Brazil, the world’s largest producer of soybeans, sugar and coffee, rose nearly 30% in the first half of this year, the Russian Fertilizer Producers Association said. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte singled out Brazil among a ...