March 17, 2026
Brazil: A Record Crop with Tighter Margins
Brazil is projected to produce a record 6.5 billion bushels of soybeans in the 2025-2026 crop season. However, despite the big crop, farm margins are predicted to decline to their lowest level in nearly two decades. Lower soybean prices, high production costs, and weak port premiums have compressed profitability for Brazilian farmers. The situation could lead to a slowdown in soybean acreage expansion in Brazil, which has been increasing year after year since the early 2000s. The high input costs, especially for fertilizers and financial interest rates, are cutting into profits, and many farmers in Brazil will operate at or near breakeven. While some reports anticipate lower fertilizer costs and interest rates expected for the 2026-2027 production cycle, current conditions have prompted a cautious outlook for future acreage expansion. Despite the tighter margins, Brazil continues to dominate in exports, with high export projections predicted, especially to China.
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Groups File Class Action Lawsuit on Fertilizer Price Fixing
Several of the world’s largest fertilizer producers were hit with a class-action lawsuit last week, accusing the companies of conspiring to inflate fertilizer prices for U.S. farmers. They say the conspiracy added thousands of dollars in input costs per farm and raised major concerns across the agricultural supply chain. Union Line Farms of Hopkinton, Iowa, filed the suit and targets many of the companies currently dominating the global fertilizer market. The suit names companies like Mosaic, Nutrien, Koch Agronomic Services, and others, alleging they coordinated production and pricing strategies to artificially increase the cost of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potash, key inputs for crop production across U.S. agriculture. When prices began rising sharply during supply chain disruptions and geopolitical tensions in 2020, the suit alleges that prices remained elevated long after those pressures had ceased. The suit said fertilizer costs increased by 60 percent between 2021 and 2022, adding an estimated $128,000 in additional costs per farm in 2022 alone.
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Groups Ask Companies to Renounce Fertilizer Duties
Sixty-four agricultural groups cited the impact of the Middle East conflict in a letter sent to two of the nation’s largest fertilizer producers, urging them to support the removal of duties on imported phosphate products from Morocco. “The recent Middle East conflict has led to increases in the prices of U.S. fertilizer, regardless of actual impact to the U.S. supply,” read the letter, which was sent to The Mosaic Company and J.R. Simplot. “We strongly urge efforts to lower and stabilize prices by renouncing support of phosphate duties incurred through antidumping and countervailing duty investigations.” In 2020, the Commerce Department, acting on a petition by Mosaic, imposed duties on phosphate fertilizers imported from Morocco and Russia. At the time, Mosaic claimed that unfairly subsidized foreign companies were flooding the U.S. market with fertilizers and selling them at extremely low prices. The petition was supported by J.R. Simplot.
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China Signals Openness to Buying More U.S. Ag Products
Top U.S. and Chinese economic officials held what were called “remarkably stable” talks in Paris during the weekend on several topics. Reuters said the discussions centered on potential areas of agreement in agriculture, critical minerals, and managed trade for U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to consider in Beijing. Two sources familiar with the talks told Reuters that the Chinese side showed additional willingness toward buying more U.S. agricultural goods, including poultry, beef, and non-soybean row crops, adding that China is still committed to buying 25 million tons of American soybeans each of the next three years. However, the Associated Press said President Trump is considering a delay in the visit to China at the end of the month as he wants to increase the pressure on Beijing to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz (hor-MOOZ) and calm oil prices that have soared during the Iran war.
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Grants Available to Combat Emerging Agricultural Threats
The USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) launched a new competitive grants program to rapidly address emerging and re-emerging pest and disease threats across the nation’s food and agricultural systems. The grants program, titled “Rapid Response to Emerging and Re-Emerging Pest and Disease Events Across Food and Agricultural Systems,” is designed to deploy timely, science-based solutions to protect agricultural productivity, ecosystem health, and food security. “This program empowers researchers and Extension professionals to act quickly, delivering practical solutions that safeguard our agricultural communities and the nation’s food supply,” said Dr. Jaye Hamby, director of NIFA (NEE-fah). Applications must directly address the effects associated with the emergence or re-emergence within the last 180 days of pests or diseases in animal or plant production systems or within the food supply. For information, visit nifa.usda.gov.
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Moffitt is the New Vice President for American Farmland Trust
American Farmland Trust has promoted Jenny Lester Moffitt to Vice President of Farmland Protection and Strategic Priorities, where she’ll lead a national effort to safeguard America’s working lands now and into the future. Moffitt will unite AFT’s farmland protection, information, and capacity-building initiatives, strengthen the National Agricultural Land Network and Farmland Information Center, and expand conservation easements, land transfers, and public-private partnerships. “I’m honored to take on this role and help expand American Farmland Trust’s efforts to protect farmland and ensure the farmers and ranchers have the opportunity to thrive for generations to come,” said Moffitt. “As a farmer and longtime advocate for working lands, I know how much farmland protection matters to the people and communities who depend on it.” Before joining AFT in 2025, Moffitt served as USDA’s Undersecretary for Marketing and Regulatory Reforms and was the first woman to serve in the position.
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