Can higher fertilizer prices eliminate the supply?

All hope an average spring has now passed; especially now that the rain is throwing a spanner in the works. In many areas, hardly any manure was spread this week because the plots are simply too wet.

Pig farmers are not served
Pig farmers who had expected a smooth supply in the spring, and who have therefore offered as little manure as possible recently, are not being served. A direct consequence of this is that collection contributions are not decreasing for the time being and rather tend to increase. However, higher collection contributions do not contribute to more sales. Dry weather will do so, but it should not take too long.

Pig farmers whose manure pits have reached their maximum capacity (particularly in the south of the Netherlands) spend a lot of time shopping for an intermediary who is willing to collect the manure. However, there it is at the back of the queue, because priority is given to previously made agreements and own manure silos. It is estimated that 10% to 15% of the fattening pig slurry will remain and will therefore not be removed this spring.

Limited supply of cattle slurry
Due to the shrinking livestock population, the supply of cattle slurry is more limited than was the case last spring. Especially among those livestock farmers who have derogation. Although there is great interest from arable farming in cattle slurry, the higher-ups speak amounts to be paid of the fattening pig slurry.

Now that the demand is accumulating, it is expected that (if the weather changes) all demand will be released in one go. Whether this has consequences for the amount of manure to be spread will depend, among other things, on the development of the wheat plots. So far, the cold spring has slowed the growth of wheat fields, which could be a plus.

Sales of chicken manure
Sales of chicken manure continue to be affected by the new German regulations. In practice, priority is given to chicken manure German companies, as a result of which the volume of Dutch chicken manure has shrunk significantly. There is no alternative sales to, for example, BMC in Moerdijk, because it is at its maximum capacity.

Other sales opportunities are being explored, but these have not yet yielded any concrete results. It is not inconceivable that fewer chicken manure exports will have consequences for the availability of replacement processing agreements (VVOs).The average collection contributions for fattening pig slurry over the years.