By Patricia Weiss
FRANKFURT (Reuters) – German mineral mining group K+S, which also produces potash fertilisers in Canada, said that import tariffs to be imposed by the United States would greatly challenge U.S. farmers.
“The Unites States, one of the largest users of potash fertilisers, does not have any noteworthy potash fertiliser production of its own and therefore relies on larger import quantities,” the company said in a statement, when asked to comment on the tariffs.
“The decision that was just taken therefore poses a great challenge for the domestic agriculture sector,” it added.
The group ships about 300,000 tonnes of potash from its Bethune site in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan into the U.S. per year, which compares with about 10 million tonnes of total U.S. potash imports.
The impact on its business was therefore “relatively minor”. K+S added that it could redirect volumes from Canada elsewhere on short notice and that it was considering expanding exports from its German mines into the United Sates.
(Reporting by Patricia Weiss, writing by Ludwig Burger, editing by Kirsti Knolle and Miranda Murray)
