Fertiliser prices ease for the first time in three seasons

Urea and DAP quotes have fallen for a third consecutive month across most import markets, the first sustained easing since the 2023 spike, with landed urea down roughly 12 per cent on late-2025 levels in Asia-Pacific ports and similar moves reported into Europe and South America.

Traders put the shift down to three forces arriving at once: new Middle Eastern urea capacity finally shipping at volume, Chinese export quotas loosening after two restrictive years, and gas input costs settling into a lower band than the market had priced for winter.

For farmers the practical question is, as always, whether to lock forward or ride the spot market. Consultants spoken to for this piece split roughly down the middle. The forward camp argues that the easing is supply-driven and could reverse on a single policy announcement out of Beijing or a gas shock; the spot camp counters that new capacity keeps arriving through 2027 and the direction of travel is down.

What both camps agree on: the days of buying fertiliser without a plan are over. Price your nitrogen against your expected response rate, not against last year's invoice. On thin margins, agronomists increasingly recommend variable-rate application driven by soil testing rather than blanket cuts — trimming rates where response curves are flat and holding them where yield is bought cheapest.

Watch points for the next quarter: Chinese quota policy, northern-hemisphere gas storage going into autumn, and Baltic ammonia movements. Any one of them can put the floor back under this market.