fertilizer statistics

Fertilizer statistics bundle four measurements of one market: capacity installed, output produced, cross-border trade and consumption absorbed by farms. IFASTAT describes its coverage as “covering global fertilizer capacity, production, trade and consumption for nitrogen, phosphate and potash products,” and tags the underlying commodities ammonia, urea, phosphate and potash.

The series lengths differ sharply. Capacity, production and trade run from roughly 2000 to the present, with 2025 marked preliminary and 2026 forward-looking, while consumption reaches back to 1961. That means more than six decades of demand history sit alongside roughly two decades of supply-side detail. FAOSTAT’s “Fertilizers by Nutrient” dataset, cataloged under fertilizers-agricultural-chemicals, is the companion source for the consumption side.

A vendor can truthfully advertise “global fertilizer data since 1961” and still ship nothing on capacity before 2000. Buyers who model plant utilization or trade flows against that headline date find the gap only after the pipelines are built.

• Vintage labels move the answer mid-year. IFASTAT marks 2025 preliminary and 2026 forward-looking, so a capacity forecast keyed to this year’s file will shift when actuals land.
• Nutrient scope decides fitness. A nitrogen-only feed cannot price potash exposure; the three-product split — nitrogen, phosphate, potash — is the scope test.
• Demand and supply have different depths. Consumption’s 1961 start supports long-run crop-response work; capacity analysis cannot borrow that history.

See how these series sit inside the wider commodity-chemicals data catalog.

1. Check the four-measure scope. Capacity, production, trade and consumption — IFASTAT names all four in its own short description; a source missing one changes what you can model.

1. Read the vintage flags. 2025 preliminary, 2026 forward-looking: treat current-year capacity figures as provisional until revised.

1. Compare series start dates. Consumption from 1961 versus capacity and trade from about 2000 — do not assume one shared history across measures.

1. Look for commodity tags. Ammonia, urea, phosphate and potash markers show whether product-level detail exists beyond nutrient totals.

1. Cross-check consumption against FAOSTAT. “Fertilizers by Nutrient” provides an independent second read on the demand series.

Entries adjacent to fertilizer statistics in this glossary:

• monthly-production-statistics
• petrochemical-feedstock