Determining what works | Fertilizer makers no longer have to meet certain quality and efficacy standards for registration
Farmers shouldn’t believe anything they hear or read about certain fertilizer products, says a provincial crop specialist.
“You stay in this business a while and you start realizing there’s a lot of useless crap being sold that has dubious claims,” said Harry Brook, a specialist with Alberta Agriculture.
He believes that is truer today than it was in the past because the federal government has dropped the efficacy component of fertilizer product registrations.
“They’re more concerned about safety,” said Brook.
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“Whether or not it works at all is immaterial.”
Canadian farmers spend as much as $4 billion per year on fertilizer products.
Brook said many of them are “miracle products” that contain exaggerated performance claims.
He is particularly wary of fertilizer supplements and micronutrients.
“You take a bit of science and you fluff it up and you can sell people just about anything,” said Brook.
Clyde Graham, president of the Canadian Fertilizer Institute, which represents manufacturers of nitrogen, phosphate, potash and sulfur fertilizers as well as wholesale and retail distributors of those products, said most fertilizer products sold in Canada have proven track records.
However, he agreed that there is a growing need for buyer beware since the government got rid of the quality and efficacy components of product registration in April 2013.
“We didn’t support the (agriculture) minister’s decision on it,” he said.
“We didn’t encourage this change. We thought the regulations had served the industry quite well for a long period of time.”
Graham said the change was an attempt by Ottawa to get rid of a backlog in product registrations. Some companies were having a difficult time proving to regulators that their products worked.
However, he said the backlog hasn’t gone away because some of the new products are complex and require significant scientific review just on the safety component.
In the meantime, farmers are inundated with unfamiliar products that don’t offer the same consistency and nutrition as traditional fertilizer products.
“What we see is some uncertainty in the marketplace now, particularly for newer, more novel products,” said Graham.
“If I were a grower, I’d be asking for evidence of the science behind the product and field trials and things like that.”
Jennifer Bailes, director of marketing and customer strategy with Compass Minerals, which bought Wolf Trax in April, agreed that growers need to be extra vigilant these days when it comes to buying specialty fertilizer products.
Growers should buy micronutrients only if soil or plant nutrient tests indicate there is a deficiency or if experience shows there is a plant growth or health benefit associated with using them.
Bailes said growers should look for research-proven products that are backed by a manufacturer guarantee.
She said they should also be looking for a proven track record and products that were developed specifically for the Canadian market.
Brook’s advice to growers is to try the products out on their farm using strip trials for a year or more before making a big financial commitment.
A product might be a worthwhile investment if it repeatedly delivers a measurable yield increase over a crop that hasn’t received the treatment.
It should also provide a return that is at least double what the grower is spending, which is usually in the range of $7 to $10 per acre.
There are telltale signs he looks for when trying to spot a product that might contain “spurious or suspicious” performance claims.
“A lot of these products are sold on the basis of testimonial, and that raises a red flag for me because a testimonial means there is no research to back up the claim,” he said.
Even when there is research, it can be bogus science. For instance, a company could make a yield boost claim based on the results of one trial out of the 20 it conducted.
Brook said it is crucial that growers prove the results themselves, especially in today’s environment of declining crop prices.
“You’ve got to make sure that every dollar you’re spending on that crop actually is paying its way,” he said.
Graham said it is too late to turn back the clock and reinstall the quality and efficacy requirements for product registration.
However, there are ways to tweak the regulation by bringing in standards and tolerances for key nutrients and coming up with better definitions of what makes a good fertilizer.
“There’s a few things like that we could take a look at that would be helpful to farmers,” he said.
sean.pratt@producer.com
