Corn Grower Associations from Iowa and Two Other States Write to Trump on October 27 Urging Fertilizer Antitrust Investigation
Knoxville, Marion County, Iowa — The Iowa Corn Growers Association, together with the Ohio and Texas corn grower associations, sent a joint letter to President Trump on October 27 urging the federal government to support and advance an investigation into anticompetitive conduct in the fertilizer market. The letter thanked the administration for its efforts to support farmers, including the recent diesel relief announcement, but said high fertilizer prices outweigh those benefits, and that persistent price increases and a lack of meaningful competition warrant enforcement action by federal regulators. It called on the administration to support the Federal Trade Commission in pursuing well-grounded enforcement against market concentration and anticompetitive behavior in the fertilizer industry — a request rooted in a December 2025 executive order directing the Justice Department and the FTC to investigate price fixing and anticompetitive behavior in the food supply chain, with specific attention to fertilizer markets. Steve Kuiper of the Iowa Corn Growers Association said farmers face fertilizer costs that simply do not reflect a competitive marketplace, and that farmers need a transparent, competitive fertilizer market to stand a chance of being profitable. The letter noted that ammonia price quotes seen by Iowa farmers rose by about $150 per ton shortly after the diesel relief announcement. Whether the federal government advances the investigation awaits official statements.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：爱荷华州玉米田（资料图）。Don McCulley 摄，CC0，来源：Wikimedia Commons / Photo: An Iowa corn field (file photo). By Don McCulley, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
