JULY 2026  SEEDWORLD.COM/CANADA   41
The Cost of Waiting
If supply fragility is one side of the equa­
tion, purchasing behaviour is the other. 
And according to Keyman, it is making a 
difficult situation worse.
“They are all doing a major mistake 
for waiting this long,” he says. “You have 
to have your supplies locked up, at least 
part of it, particularly in a fragile supply 
chain. Imagine 38% of urea comes out of 
the Arabian Gulf. Why would you risk 
such a big supply and wait until the last 
moment?”
The financial consequences are 
already visible.
“Last spring, the U.S. farmer paid 
about $200 per ton more than Brazil 
because of last-minute buying,” Keyman 
says. “This year, again, they waited too 
long. Urea in New Orleans was $390 in 
January and now it’s trading at $730. We 
thought there was a lesson, but history 
tells me we have short memories.”
That pattern — delayed purchasing 
followed by price spikes — is not just a 
logistical issue. It is now colliding with a 
deeper economic problem on the farm.
Margins Under Pressure
Pivot Bio CEO Chris Abbott sees the 
crisis through a different lens: farmer 
profitability. And from that vantage 
point, the situation is reaching unprec­
edented levels of strain.
“In a six-year period, you’ve had three 
shocks to the supply chain — COVID, 
Russia/Ukraine and now Iran,” Abbott 
says. “But unlike prior disruptions, we 
have not seen grain prices rise to offset 
this. The ratio of nitrogen price to grain 
price is as bad as it’s ever been. I mean 
literally, in history, it is as bad as it’s ever 
been.”
That imbalance is forcing difficult 
decisions across the farm.
“The largest input for farmers is crop 
nutrition,” Abbott says. “When that 
entire complex spikes, it’s painful. And 
now you have that happening at a time 
when margins are already compressed. 
That’s where the real friction shows up.”
Chris 
Abbott, 
Pivot Bio CEO
Chris 
Turner, 
Pivot Bio CCO
Pivot Bio CCO Chris Turner says the 
financial pressure is showing up in ways 
the industry cannot ignore.
“We’re in a time right now where our 
customers financially on farm, it’s unri­
valed in the last 25 to 30 years,” he says. 
“Every input is up year over year, and that 
compounds the situation. Farmers are 
facing significant headwinds in the grains 
market at the same time.”
A Shift Toward Efficiency
If there is a path forward, Keyman says 
it lies in changing how the industry 
approaches inputs altogether.
“We are going to have to turn into 
providers of solutions instead of sell­
ers of fertilizers, seeds or chemicals,” he 
says. “We have to improve efficiency. 
Technology — better seeds, better chem­
istry, specialty fertilizers — that is where 
the yield gains are coming from now.”
Abbott echoes that shift from a differ­
ent angle, noting that not all responses to 
the crisis are rooted in supply.
“Technology should be cost deflation­
ary,” Abbott says. “In most industries, 
when technology advances, costs go 
down. Agriculture has not always fol­
lowed that pattern, and at some point, 
farmers cannot absorb continuous cost 
increases.”
A System That Won’t Snap Back Easily
For all the attention on shipping lanes 
and geopolitical headlines, the deeper 
story is harder to unwind. Supply con­
straints, investment hurdles, purchasing 
behavior and farmer economics are now 
tightly interwoven.
Keyman sees the risk clearly.
“We have to hedge better, plan 
better and pay attention to where the 
real vulnerabilities are — especially in 
phosphates.”
And even if conditions improve, he 
offers a final caution.
“When things get better, we tend to 
forget and go back to the same behav­
iour. But this time, the system may not 
forgive that so easily.” 
Melih Keyman, 
Keytrade AG 
CEO

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