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Ag groups ask Biden to lift fertilizer tariffs

The fight to lift tariffs on fertilizer products has been taken to the White House.

Iowa Farm Bureau president Brent Johnson says he and other leaders with American Farm Bureau, the National Corn Growers Association, and American Soybean Association were recently in Washington to deliver a letter to President Biden asking him to remove tariffs on imports of phosphate and nitrogen fertilizers.

“That’ll go a significant way to level the playing field in dealing with some of those antitrust issues.”

He tells Brownfield the President removed tariffs on solar panels in the name of national security.

“And while we certainly appreciate that, when it comes to national security there’s nothing closer than food production and food stability for all citizens across the entire nation.”

Johnson says on his farm in west-central Iowa, dry fertilizer prices have gone up 200 percent and liquid fertilizers like nitrogen have risen 300 percent.