The U.S. Department of Agriculture has selected eight fertilizer manufacturing projects in 16 states for about $573 million in proposed federal funding, part of more than $1.34 billion in total investment, Vice President JD Vance and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced on October 22. The money comes from USDA's Fertilizer Investment & Expansion for Long-Term Domestic Supply program, known as FIELDS, and is not yet final: the department describes the funding as "proposed" and the projects as "selected to move forward in the FIELDS funding process." USDA staff said the projects should break ground within weeks and be finished in 2027 or 2028. The department's economists estimate the added output could cut nitrogen fertilizer prices by 4.4 percent and potash prices by 5.3 percent once the plants are running, figures that are USDA's own projections.
"Farm security is national security," Rollins said. "America cannot afford to depend on foreign nations for the fertilizer needed to grow our food and feed our families." Vance, who made the announcement in Nebraska, said farmers "are going to have fertilizer at lower costs that is made by Americans."
The eight projects
The largest USDA share, about $139 million, would go toward a $265 million Intrepid Potash plant near Carlsbad, New Mexico, making about 220,000 tons a year of sulfate of potash, a potassium fertilizer used on crops that cannot tolerate chloride. TalusAg would receive about $99.8 million toward $270.2 million for 20 modular ammonia units at 11 sites in Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Tennessee, Nebraska, Illinois and South Dakota. PCI Nitrogen would receive about $100 million toward a $200 million expansion of ammonium sulfate and urea production in Pasadena, Texas, and St. Helens, Oregon. Agriculture Project Holdco would receive about $116.9 million toward a $360 million project in Lewis, Kansas, and Fair Oaks, Indiana, to turn dairy manure into liquid ammonium nitrate.
The other four are smaller: AdvanSix, about $47.4 million for ammonia in Hopewell, Virginia; SUL4R-PLUS Illinois, about $34.9 million for sulfur fertilizer in Marissa, Illinois; Peace Valley, about $19.9 million for a plant in Bartow, Florida, making products containing nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and sulfur; and True Organic Products, about $15.3 million for fertilizer made from agricultural byproducts at sites in California, Oregon and Arizona. Rollins said the eight together would add more than a million tons a year of domestic production and capacity, and USDA's analysis projects increases of nearly 40 percent in domestic potash production and 3.7 percent in nitrogen.
Why potash stands out
On potash, U.S. reliance on imports is near total. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that net imports supplied 92 percent of U.S. potash consumption in 2025, and that Canada provided 79 percent of U.S. potash imports from 2021 through 2024, followed by Russia at 12 percent and Israel at 3 percent. Domestic production, about 500,000 tons of potassium oxide equivalent in 2025, comes mostly from southeastern New Mexico, where the Intrepid plant would be built, and from Utah. Potash was added to the federal list of critical minerals in November 2025. For nitrogen and phosphate, USDA points to concentration rather than imports: four companies control about 77 percent of North American nitrogen production capacity and two account for more than 90 percent of phosphate capacity, while two produce about 90 percent of North America's potash. Across all fertilizers, Rollins said the U.S. imports about half of the roughly 20 million tons it uses each year.
Prices, the Iran war and the earlier program
The new plants will not affect this season's prices. Fertilizer prices spiked this spring when the war with Iran cut off supplies shipped through the Strait of Hormuz, DTN reported, and Rollins tied near-term relief to the end of that conflict. She also said investigations into consolidation in the fertilizer and seed industries, which USDA is pursuing with the Justice Department, must "continue unabated."
FIELDS launched on July 1 with $500 million in Commodity Credit Corporation money. A USDA policy adviser said part of the $573 million came from unused funds of the Fertilizer Production Expansion Program, created under President Biden. Rollins described the shift as "redirecting funding from failed Biden-era projects toward financially viable, shovel-ready investments" and has said that of that program's projects, "only eight were completed." That program's last round of awards was announced in December 2024, a month before the change of administration; USDA said then that it had invested $517 million in 76 facilities. None of the coverage reviewed quoted a defender of the earlier program or an independent critic of the new selections.
This article reflects reporting through the afternoon of Monday, October 26, 2026. Sources: USDA, October 22 (text as reproduced by WTAQ); Strip-Till Farmer; High Plains Journal; Iowa Capital Dispatch; Agri-Pulse; Farm Policy News; DTN; USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Potash.
