Who Leads the Global Fertilizer Trade?
Key Takeaways
- Russia is the world’s largest fertilizer exporter, shipping 23.2 million tonnes by nutrient content in 2024.
- Canada, China, Morocco, and Russia together account for 53% of global fertilizer exports.
- Mineral deposits and energy supplies help shape which countries lead the fertilizer trade.
The global food supply depends on a fertilizer trade concentrated among a relatively small group of countries.
Farmers use fertilizers to replenish nutrients and support crop growth. Producing them at scale depends heavily on access to key mineral deposits and energy resources.
This visualization ranks the world’s largest fertilizer exporters using the latest figures available (2024) from the Food and Agriculture Organization. It combines nitrogen, phosphate, and potash exports, measured by nutrient content rather than the full weight of fertilizer products.
The Big Four Fertilizer Exporters
Global fertilizer exports topped 113.3 million tonnes in 2024, with the four largest exporters accounting for more than half of the total.
Russia leads the ranking with 23.2 million tonnes, followed by Canada (14.4 million), Morocco (12.2 million), and China (10.1 million).
The table below ranks the world’s top fertilizer exporters in 2024 based on total tonnes exported.
| Rank | Country | 2024 fertilizer exports (tonnes) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Russia | 23,234,623 |
| 2 | Canada | 14,419,294 |
| 3 | Morocco | 12,154,362 |
| 4 | China | 10,126,069 |
| 5 | U.S. | 6,372,572 |
| 6 | Saudi Arabia | 5,589,139 |
| 7 | Germany | 3,136,446 |
| 8 | Israel | 2,782,901 |
| 9 | Qatar | 2,471,034 |
| 10 | Belarus | 2,436,719 |
| 11 | Netherlands | 2,244,415 |
| 12 | Egypt | 1,910,594 |
| 13 | Belgium | 1,830,168 |
| 14 | Algeria | 1,753,242 |
| 15 | Oman | 1,649,407 |
| 16 | Norway | 1,641,508 |
| 17 | Laos | 1,629,908 |
| 18 | Nigeria | 1,415,355 |
| 19 | Poland | 1,070,679 |
| 20 | Malaysia | 1,061,170 |
| 21 | Turkmenistan | 1,024,841 |
| 22 | Spain | 865,510 |
| 23 | Indonesia | 748,316 |
| 24 | Lithuania | 727,186 |
| 25 | Trinidad and Tobago | 689,636 |
| 26 | Vietnam | 610,681 |
| 27 | Chile | 601,601 |
| 28 | Türkiye | 513,686 |
| 29 | Brunei | 497,215 |
| 30 | Jordan | 433,747 |
| 31 | Bulgaria | 381,202 |
| 32 | South Korea | 374,965 |
| 33 | Slovakia | 360,260 |
| 34 | Uzbekistan | 359,536 |
| 35 | Bahrain | 318,528 |
| 36 | France | 301,235 |
| 37 | Italy | 297,626 |
| 38 | Venezuela | 276,721 |
| 39 | Australia | 271,208 |
| 40 | UK | 265,615 |
| 41 | Bolivia | 263,910 |
| 42 | Kazakhstan | 260,759 |
| 43 | Azerbaijan | 259,871 |
| 44 | South Africa | 254,092 |
| 45 | Greece | 245,335 |
| 46 | Tunisia | 223,833 |
| 47 | Brazil | 205,427 |
| 48 | Sweden | 201,946 |
| 49 | Thailand | 198,058 |
| 50 | Serbia | 184,174 |
| 51 | Portugal | 175,072 |
| 52 | Hungary | 174,732 |
| 53 | India | 155,111 |
| 54 | Czechia | 145,631 |
| 55 | Georgia | 131,526 |
| 56 | Taiwan | 124,326 |
| 57 | Mexico | 121,036 |
| 58 | Japan | 105,137 |
| 59 | Romania | 95,519 |
| 60 | Côte d'Ivoire | 94,742 |
| 61 | Croatia | 86,147 |
| 62 | Latvia | 64,310 |
| 63 | Slovenia | 59,726 |
| 64 | Lebanon | 59,118 |
| 65 | Finland | 51,017 |
| 66 | Colombia | 40,997 |
| 67 | Namibia | 40,182 |
| 68 | Honduras | 36,650 |
| 69 | Mozambique | 34,813 |
| 70 | Tanzania | 29,417 |
| 71 | Denmark | 29,249 |
| 72 | Senegal | 28,976 |
| 73 | Kenya | 28,094 |
| 74 | Dominican Republic | 22,095 |
| 75 | Peru | 21,757 |
| 76 | United Arab Emirates | 20,627 |
| 77 | Guatemala | 19,637 |
| 78 | Ghana | 19,325 |
| 79 | Philippines | 19,041 |
| 80 | Iran | 16,938 |
| 81 | Austria | 15,574 |
| 82 | Singapore | 15,198 |
| 83 | Ireland | 14,811 |
| 84 | Madagascar | 14,692 |
| 85 | Costa Rica | 13,587 |
| 86 | Ukraine | 13,291 |
| 87 | Mali | 13,089 |
| 88 | Luxembourg | 12,538 |
| 89 | El Salvador | 12,420 |
| 90 | Eswatini | 9,464 |
| 91 | Uruguay | 7,628 |
| 92 | Estonia | 6,768 |
| 93 | Panama | 4,340 |
| 94 | Guyana | 3,527 |
| 95 | North Macedonia | 2,869 |
| 96 | Ecuador | 1,585 |
| 97 | Bosnia and Herzegovina | 1,543 |
| 98 | North Korea | 1,265 |
| 99 | Hong Kong | 1,244 |
| 100 | Kuwait | 1,237 |
| 101 | Malawi | 1,000 |
| 102 | Paraguay | 972 |
| 103 | Bahamas | 884 |
| 104 | Syria | 612 |
| 105 | Angola | 583 |
| 106 | Iraq | 579 |
| 107 | Pakistan | 570 |
| 108 | New Zealand | 543 |
| 109 | Burkina Faso | 539 |
| 110 | Cameroon | 523 |
| 111 | Tajikistan | 450 |
| 112 | Libya | 349 |
| 113 | Uganda | 334 |
| 114 | Switzerland | 327 |
| 115 | Togo | 315 |
| 116 | Botswana | 233 |
| 117 | Moldova | 232 |
| 118 | Kyrgyzstan | 176 |
| 119 | Mauritius | 155 |
| 120 | Bangladesh | 131 |
| 121 | Armenia | 116 |
| 122 | Gambia | 101 |
| 123 | Benin | 54 |
| 124 | Jamaica | 42 |
| 125 | Albania | 36 |
| 126 | Liberia | 20 |
| 127 | Congo | 18 |
| 128 | Cyprus | 9 |
| 129 | DR Congo | 8 |
| 130 | Palestine | 8 |
| 131 | Cuba | 6 |
| 132 | Niger | 6 |
| 133 | Cambodia | 3 |
| 134 | Montenegro | 3 |
| 135 | Sri Lanka | 2 |
| 136 | Suriname | 1 |
| Total | 113,373,883 |
These totals combine different parts of the fertilizer industry, each supplying essential nutrients for agriculture. Potash supplies potassium, while phosphate fertilizers supply phosphorus. Nitrogen fertilizers follow a different production process.
As a result, strength in one fertilizer category does not necessarily translate to strength in another. The four leading exporters dominate different parts of the market.
Mining Potash and Phosphate
Canada’s position starts underground. Its potash industry draws on extensive deposits in Saskatchewan, giving the country an advantage that producers without comparable resources cannot easily replicate.
Canada supplies over 70% of the potash consumed in the United States. Efforts to replace Canadian supply with smaller producers, such as Belarus (2.4 million tonnes), therefore face significant logistical challenges.
Morocco, meanwhile, is a major producer of phosphate rock. State-owned OCP Group mines the resource and processes it into phosphoric acid and phosphate fertilizers. OCP alone holds over 30% of the global phosphate market, generating revenue of nearly $10 billion in 2024.
Energy-Intensive Nitrogen Production
For nitrogen fertilizer, the constraint is different. Nitrogen is abundant in the air, but converting it into ammonia, the starting point for mineral nitrogen fertilizers, requires substantial energy and a source of hydrogen.
Natural gas commonly provides both the fuel and the raw material needed to produce that hydrogen. Access to relatively low-cost gas has helped Russia, along with exporters such as Qatar (2.5 million tonnes) and the U.S. (6.4 million tonnes), expand ammonia production.
China, meanwhile, developed much of its ammonia industry around abundant coal supplies instead. The country produces more coal than the rest of the world combined.
Learn More on the Voronoi App
To see how one major market has maintained demand for fertilizer, check out EU Has Continued to Buy Russian Fertilizer Throughout War on Voronoi.