Fertilizer Lawsuit Targets Major Producers for Price Fixing

The fertilizer price-fixing lawsuit is a set of federal antitrust class actions, now consolidated into a single multidistrict litigation in the District of Kansas, accusing the largest U.S. fertilizer producers of conspiring since at least January 2021 to restrict output and inflate prices for nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium (NPK) fertilizers. The named defendants include The Mosaic Company, Nutrien Ltd., CF Industries Holdings, Koch Agronomic Services, Yara International, and the Canadian potash export joint venture Canpotex Ltd. The U.S. Department of Justice opened a parallel investigation in March 2026.

What the Lawsuits Allege

The complaints allege violations of Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The theory is that the defendants used their dominant positions in highly concentrated markets to curtail production, idle capacity, delay expansions, and manage inventory in ways that kept supply artificially tight while prices climbed more than 60 percent during 2021 and 2022.¹ Plaintiffs seek treble damages, injunctive relief, and disgorgement of profits under the Sherman Act and the Clayton Act.²

There is no single admission or smoking-gun document at the center of the case. Instead, the complaints assemble what antitrust lawyers call plus factors: parallel pricing moves across nitrogen, phosphate, and potash; simultaneous supply cutbacks during a period of record demand; and the exchange of competitively sensitive information through trade organizations.³

One complaint goes further and names the International Fertilizer Association and The Fertilizer Institute as defendants, alleging that the trade groups served as forums where competing manufacturers shared confidential market intelligence. Leadership from each of the manufacturing defendants sits on the boards of both organizations, according to that complaint.⁴

Canpotex Ltd., a Saskatoon-based joint venture owned equally by Mosaic and Nutrien and formed in 1972, receives particular attention. It coordinates potash marketing, sales, and transportation for export. The lawsuits allege it gives its owners a mechanism to align U.S. pricing and supply by sharing data on production, inventories, customers, and shipments. Canpotex has drawn antitrust scrutiny before: after a 2008 class action, Mosaic and PotashCorp (a Nutrien predecessor) each paid $43.75 million to settle price-fixing claims.⁵

Who Is Being Sued

The defendants collectively control most of American fertilizer production, which the complaints argue is what made coordination possible.

Nitrogen: CF Industries, Nutrien, Koch, and Yara together control roughly 84 percent of North American nitrogen capacity, with CF Industries alone holding about 40 percent.⁶
Phosphate: Mosaic and Nutrien control approximately 86 percent, with Mosaic holding two-thirds on its own.⁶
Potash: Nutrien and Mosaic control roughly 89 to 95 percent of U.S. potash, depending on the measure.⁷

This concentration is the product of decades of consolidation. Between 1984 and 2008, the number of U.S. nitrogen fertilizer producers fell 72 percent, from 46 to 13.⁸ Koch faces additional allegations tied to its $3.6 billion acquisition of OCI Global’s Iowa Fertilizer Company in Wever, Iowa, which closed by August 2024 over the objections of a coalition of agricultural organizations that had asked the FTC and DOJ to block it.⁴

The Price Spike at the Center of the Case

Every complaint is built on the same run-up in prices. Anhydrous ammonia, the most widely used nitrogen fertilizer, exceeded $1,600 per ton through April 2022, above its previous 2008 record of $1,161 per ton. Urea passed $1,000 per ton, and potash reached $857 per ton by September 2022.⁹ USDA data showed nitrogen prices rose 95 percent in 2021 alone, with potash up more than 70 percent.⁸

Fertilizer accounts for roughly 33 to 44 percent of total operating costs for corn and 34 to 45 percent for wheat, according to USDA.¹⁰ Per-acre fertilizer costs for corn jumped from $175 in September 2021 to $247 a year later.⁹

The defendants and some independent economists attribute the surge to external causes: pandemic supply chain disruptions, high natural gas costs (a key nitrogen input), and Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.¹¹ Plaintiffs point to corporate margins as counter-evidence. One analysis cited in the complaints found Nutrien’s gross manufacturing profit margin grew 669 percent in 2021 while its cost of goods sold rose only 58 percent. By 2022, Mosaic’s profits had grown 120 percent over 2021, Nutrien’s 142 percent, and CF Industries’ 212 percent.⁶

Who Can Join the Class

The proposed classes cover farmers, agricultural retailers, fertilizer distributors, and other entities that purchased NPK fertilizers directly from one or more of the defendants in the United States during the alleged conspiracy period. The Union Line Farms complaint sets the class period beginning January 1, 2021.³ The Buckman Farms and Saveri complaints reach back to January 1, 2020.¹²

No class has been formally certified yet. If the claims succeed or settle, eligible purchasers would need to submit documentation of their fertilizer purchases during the relevant period to participate in any recovery.¹³ The direct-purchaser framing matters: buyers who acquired fertilizer through an intermediary rather than from a named defendant may fall outside the proposed classes as currently defined.

Where the Cases Stand

Multiple class actions were filed in rapid succession in March 2026, including Union Line Farms, Inc. v. The Mosaic Company, et al. in the District of Colorado, IIHAB Partnership v. Nutrien Ltd., et al. in the Western District of Missouri, and Jason Buckman Farms, LLC v. Canpotex Ltd., et al., also in the Western District of Missouri.³⁴¹²

On June 9, 2026, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation consolidated all pending fertilizer antitrust cases into a single proceeding, In re: Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium (NPK) Fertilizer Antitrust Litigation, MDL No. 3187. The cases were transferred to the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas and assigned to Judge Eric F. Melgren. The consolidation covers five actions listed on the panel’s initial schedule plus 29 related tag-along cases.¹⁴

As of mid-2026, the MDL is in its pretrial phase. No proposed class has been certified, and no defendant has filed a public substantive response to the merits. The litigation is expected to unfold over several years given the scope of discovery, the number of defendants, and the complexity of proving a multi-party price-fixing conspiracy across three fertilizer markets.

The Parallel DOJ Investigation

A federal criminal and civil investigation is running alongside the private suits, but it is a separate matter. On March 4, 2026, Bloomberg reported that the DOJ’s Antitrust Division, working out of its Chicago office, had opened a probe into whether Nutrien, Mosaic, CF Industries, Koch, and Yara colluded to raise fertilizer prices. The investigation was described as being in its early stages.⁸ The companies had not been formally accused of wrongdoing.¹⁵

The probe followed a December 6, 2025, executive order titled “Addressing Security Risks from Price Fixing and Anti-Competitive Behavior in the Food Supply Chain,” which directed the DOJ and FTC to establish task forces investigating anticompetitive conduct in the food supply chain and named fertilizer as a target sector. The order authorized criminal proceedings where collusion is found.¹⁶ Senator Josh Hawley sent a letter to Attorney General Pamela Bondi on March 12, 2026, urging a formal investigation.¹⁷ USDA Deputy Secretary Stephen Vaden in January 2026 publicly cited “signs” of antitrust violations and referenced the “duopoly that is Mosaic and Nutrien.”⁴

Any recovery from the DOJ investigation would flow to the government rather than to individual farmers. Purchasers who want a chance at damages need to be part of a certified class in the MDL.

1
DiCello Levitt. DiCello Levitt Co-Counsel File Class Action Alleging Price-Fixing in the U.S. Fertilizer Industry
2
AgProud. Class Action Lawsuit Alleges Price-Fixing in the U.S. Fertilizer Industry
3
Penn State Ag Law Center. Union Line Farms, Inc. v. The Mosaic Company, et al., Complaint
4
Saveri Law Firm. IIHAB Partnership v. Nutrien Ltd., et al., Complaint
5
DiCello Levitt. Union Line Farms Complaint, Full Document
6
Farm Action. Fertilizer Industry Report
7
Saveri Law Firm. NPK Fertilizer Price-Fixing Litigation
8
AgWeb. DOJ Begins Probe of Fertilizer Producers for Collusion
9
University of Illinois farmdoc daily. Fertilizer Prices, Rates, and Costs for 2023
10
USDA Economic Research Service. Fertilizer Cost Charts
11
IFPRI. Global Fertilizer Trade 2021–2023
12
ClassAction.org. Jason Buckman Farms, LLC v. Canpotex Ltd., et al., Complaint
13
Ohio State University Farm Office. Class Action Information
14
U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. MDL-3187 Transfer Order
15
Farm Action. Bloomberg: DOJ Probes U.S. Fertilizer Market for Possible Price Fixing
16
The White House. Addressing Security Risks from Price Fixing and Anti-Competitive Behavior in the Food Supply Chain
17
Senator Josh Hawley. Letter to DOJ re Fertilizer Companies