On October 28, ZEN-NOH (National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Association) or a national business organization of agricultural cooperatives (JAs) revealed a price list of spring-season major fertilizers to be supplied to JA member farmers through its organizational network during November to next May.
The price of high-performance compound fertilizer (generally compounded), which is recognized as an indicator price, is lowered by as much as 10.1 percent over that in the current autumn season of fertilizers.
ZEN-NOH could successfully cut the supply price of the compound fertilizer by more than 10 percent in two consecutive seasons thanks to lowered prices of fertilizer materials in the international market and the stronger yen in past months.
The prices of most fertilizers have been reduced almost to the similar level in 2007 when the global price hike of fertilizers had not yet been triggered.
With a view to strengthening bargaining power for price negotiations with fertilizer manufacturers, ZEN-NOH has been carrying out a new campaign of promoting “advanced-bulk orders of major fertilizers” among JA member farmers.
This nation-wide campaign aims at lowering prices of major compound fertilizers to be proposed by the manufacturers by collecting more advanced-bulk orders of these fertilizers from among farmers through JA’s network affiliated with ZEN-NOH.
ZEN-NOH and fertilizer companies have also agreed to cut prices of 12 kinds of compound fertilizers, which the national federation respectively handles more than one thousand tons per year, by additional 5 to 11 percent on the conditions of JA’s bulk delivery of fertilizers exceeding a certain level of quantities.
In the coming spring-fertilizer season, urea (imported), a kind of nitrogenous fertilizer, costs 13.2 percent less than the current autumn season. The price of ammonium sulfate (large grain) is reduced by 2.9 percent.
The price of superphosphate of phosphoric acid fertilizer is cut by 3.4 percent and that of potassium chloride by 19.4 percent.
These prices are to be applied to fertilizers to be shipped to JAs with a prefectural territory and JAs’ prefectural economic federations on November 1 in principle with some differences depending upon which region receives fertilizers as well as for which crop they are used.