Individual grants top out at $100 million, and the application window runs through mid-August.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture opened applications on July 1 for at least $500 million in grants aimed at expanding domestic fertilizer production. The Fertilizer Investment & Expansion for Long-Term Domestic Supply (FIELDS) Program caps individual awards at $100 million, with an application window that runs through Grants.gov and closes August 17, 2026. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced the funding on July 1.
USDA Rural Development's Rural Business-Cooperative Service will administer the program, with money flowing through the Commodity Credit Corporation. Eligible projects include new fertilizer facilities, expansions or upgrades of existing plants, and shovel-ready builds capable of adding supply quickly. One eligibility rule stands out: applicants and their affiliates are barred if they already hold a production market share equal to or greater than the industry's fourth-largest player in nitrogen, sulfur, phosphate, or potash, a guardrail against the funding consolidating the market further.
Rollins framed the selection criteria around speed and existing capital, not just project size. “Our goal is simple. We want fertilizer plants built in America, and we are willing to prioritize it,” she said.
FIELDS isn't the first attempt at this. USDA's own 2024 reporting on the Biden-era Fertilizer Production Expansion Program (FPEP), which carried a fund of up to $900 million, shows $517 million actually invested across 76 facilities in 34 states and Puerto Rico.
Behind the new funding is a supply shock tied to the Iran war. Reuters reports that the Strait of Hormuz closure has cut off roughly a third of the fertilizer normally moving through global trade, and that U.S. ports stopped receiving any Middle East fertilizer shipments as of May. That's layered onto a farm economy already squeezed by weak grain prices, rising fuel and input costs, and ongoing tariff disputes, according to Reuters.
Two days earlier, President Trump had moved on a related front, pausing certain phosphate import duties tied to Morocco on a temporary basis. The Federal Trade Commission is separately investigating the broader fertilizer price spike, Reuters reported.
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