The pressure on the fertilizer market has increased further in recent weeks. A lot of liquid manure is transported to the storage facilities, but not all of it is accepted due to the very large supply. The sales costs for liquid manure continue to rise every week according to the DCA manure quotations.
It is nothing new under the sun that the sector is concerned about manure sales and placement space towards 2024, but now that in practice sales costs are rising rapidly and the supply is barely manageable, the situation is becoming increasingly dire. The range is very wide and some livestock farmers have their manure pits filled to the brim.
Disposing of manure is not always easy and is no longer a certainty because some customers stick to regular customers and volumes. They are also limited to what they can accept. Some are therefore more cautious and not everyone was able to empty their manure stores last season.
While the phasing out of the derogation means that extra manure has to be sold, even to livestock farmers who previously did not have to dispose of it. And those who do dispose of manure will see that sales costs have risen enormously. There are differences per region, but more than 30 per cubic meter for pig slurry is no longer incidental. "The question is no longer how much it costs, but whether it is possible. When the pit is full, it simply has to go," says a manure intermediary. If the transport has to come from far away, the sales costs increase even further.
It is difficult to estimate how the fertilizer market will develop in the spring of 2024. According to manure intermediaries and contractors, the pressure is extremely high and regulations need to change to ease the manure market. Others think things will turn out fine in an early spring.
Trend continues
The sharply increased sales costs weigh heavily on livestock farmers and significantly increase the cost price. At a certain point, a maximum price is reached at which it is simply no longer possible to dispose of manure. According to insiders, that point seems to be in sight, but when the manure pit is full, there is no other solution.
DCA's manure quotations again show an increase this week in both cattle and pig slurry, a trend that has been the same for several weeks. On average, each region is increasing. The quotations are the average of several quotes per region, which also include fixed agreements, sometimes at slightly lower prices, partly due to transport. As a result, the average is slightly on the low side in some cases.
An overview of all DCA fertilizer quotations can be found here.