Superphosphate price rise shocks farmers

Press, 1 April 1980, Page 3

Superphosphate price rise shocks farmers

PA Auckland A 25 per cent increase in the price of superphosphate, New Zealand’s staple fertiliser, has shocked farmers. The $14.10 to $14.20 a tonne price rise, announced yesterday by the Fertiliser Manufacturers’ Association, is almost twice what fanners were expecting. According to Mr P. G. Riddell, the chairman of the Fertiliser Manufacturers’ Association, the price rise was “solely related to the increase in the cost of raw .materials.”

It comes after a new price was negotiated for supplies of phosphate rock from Nauru and Christmas Islands

and contains no increase in manufacturing costs.

Mr Riddell said he would not be surprised if the: new price had some effect on demand by farmers for superphosphate.

Mr Frith said it was difficult to predict how farmers would react to this latest price rise, which takes effect today.

Because it had been such a good season, he said, there might not be immediate cutbacks, but this rise, with the one last year when the subsidy was lifted, meant that fertiliser was now the biggest annual expense for many farmers.