Joseph Zahner, Co-Founder of Verdanté Ag
Joseph Zahner, Co-Founder of Verdanté Ag

Farmers do not set the price of the inputs they depend on. Those prices are set bymines, shipping lanes, export quotas, and wars. In 2026, all four moved at once.

The World Bank reports that its fertilizer price index rose more than 12% in the first quarter of 2026, the sixth increase in seven quarters. Urea prices climbed above $850 per metric ton in April, up 80% since February. The index is projected to rise more than 30% across the year.

The supply side is just as unstable. RNZ reports that China banned exports of nitrogen-potassium fertilizer blends and certain phosphate varieties, putting between half and three-quarters of its fertilizer exports under restriction. As Interfax reported, Russia extended its own export quotas. Importing countries responded with subsidies and stockpiling. None of that is under a farmer's control.

The cost pressure is not theoretical. According to Rural Business Magazine, the RaboResearch fertilizer affordability index has moved into negative territory and is expected to remain constrained throughout 2026. Nitrogen and phosphate prices have risen far faster than the crops they help grow. When input costs rise faster than commodity prices, the margin compresses from both ends.

A single shipping lane can tighten the entire market. AMIS reports that the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz removed an estimated 2.6 million tons of urea exports over two months. Phosphate markets are tighter because alternative suppliers are limited by phosphate rock reserves. A conflict in one region becomes a price increase on another continent. That structure has been in place since the Green Revolution. The model worked for decades because it produced yield. What it did not do was maintain the soil that made the yield possible.

Joseph Zahner is the co-founder of Verdanté Ag, a company that builds biological soil inputs from food byproducts. He came into agriculture from a scientific background. His argument is that the reliance on synthetic nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium has a cost that does not appear on the input invoice.

"The difference between soil and dirt is what lives in it," Zahner says. "Dirt is a substrate. Soil is a system. When you feed the crop and stop feeding the system, the system stops working."

That is the problem he describes. Decades of intensive NPK application have depleted soil microbial communities, the organisms that convert locked nutrients into forms plants can absorb. The result is that each season requires more input to produce the same yield. The soil becomes a delivery mechanism rather than a living system.

Zahner's position is not that synthetic fertilizer should be abandoned. It is that restoring soil biology is a different goal from feeding a crop, and it has been treated as an afterthought.

The company's approach is a fermented liquid soil conditioner and plant biostimulant made from molasses and fish meal. The manufacturing process uses a specific bacterial strain and produces a product that contains plant hormones, enzymes, and microbial communities. It is applied to the soil, and Zahner says this creates conditions under which nutrients become more available to the plants. The long-term goal is to restore the conditions under which nutrients become available again.

Zahner is not the only one concerned about soil health. The USDA has begun to treat soil health as a policy priority. In September 2026, the USDA increased funding for its Regenerative Pilot Program from $700 million to $1 billion for fiscal year 2027. The program supports practices that improve soil health, water quality, and long-term farm resilience, with the stated goal of reducing dependence on costly chemical inputs.

Zahner is direct about the timeline. He says growers should see results within the first season, but that restoring soil that has been depleted for decades takes longer. Five to 10 years is the figure he gives. The product is a start, not a switch.

What he argues is that the underlying question is not whether fertilizer works. It is what happens to food security when the price of that fertilizer depends on decisions made in other countries. A domestic biological input that uses byproducts from other industries is not a replacement for the NPK supply chain. It is a second option that does not require a shipping lane to function.

The question is not whether soil can be restored. It is whether the industry will treat that restoration as a cost worth paying before the next supply shock arrives.