South Dakota Senator Mike Rounds has joined 17 other Senators in raising concerns with President Joe Biden regarding record high fertilizer prices.  Rounds says there are several factors driving the high prices ahead of the spring planting season including supply chain-bottlenecks and the Russia Ukraine conflict taking out Russian fertilizer supplies.

He says the rising cost of energy has also driven up transportation costs associated with moving product to market and that may not change with the ongoing war creating additional disruptions.

Rounds says in their letter to the President they also asked for a review of all available options for increasing natural gas production, which is a main input for nitrogen fertilizer production.

Senator Rounds says eliminating the cross-border vaccine mandate for transporters of essential inputs of fertilizer would also be helpful.