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While people grappled with a severe food crisis and farmers saw their costs increase, the world’s largest fertiliser companies tripled their profits during the past five years. The profits of the big nine fertiliser companies grew exponentially from an average of around US$14 billion before the Covid-19 pandemic to US$28 billion in 2021 and then to an astounding US$49 billion last year, a brief published by GRAIN and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) reveals. The document released on May 23th presents the latest data on fertilizer industry profits and is an update to the report ““The Fertiliser Trap”, published by the two organisations in November 2022. GRAIN and IATP look at how these companies have contributed to the current food crisis by increasing prices far beyond increases to production costs and thereby boosting their profit margins by a massive 36% in 2022. “To deal with fertiliser cartel’s profiteering, actions must focus on supporting farmers to reduce or eliminate their use of chemical fertilisers”, they write in the brief. Such actions would not only help to bring the costs of fertilisers down, but could also help address the climate crisis and its impacts on food production due to the greenhouse gas emissions caused by chemical fertilisers. [+] more ...