18 Mar KARA Joins Coalition Letter to White House Regarding Supply Chain Constraints
Kansas Agribusiness Retailers Association (KARA) has joined a coalition letter to President Donald Trump regarding uncertainty around product availability, transportation constraints with heightened conflict in the Middle East. The letter, in-part, is below.
Given the narrow and time-sensitive planting window now underway in many parts of the country, we encourage swift executive attention to help stabilize fertilizer supply chains and maintain the efficient movement of agricultural inputs. Many of these actions align with recommendations that have been raised by producer organizations and other agricultural stakeholders.
- We respectfully urge the Administration to prioritize actions that keep fertilizer and other essential crop inputs moving quickly and efficiently through global and domestic supply chains, including: • Ensuring uninterrupted fertilizer movement through global shipping lanes, including maritime security and insurance backstops.
- Maximizing domestic transportation capacity by prioritizing fertilizer movements through U.S. ports, inland waterways, rail, and trucking networks.
- Providing targeted, temporary regulatory flexibility for transportation and logistics during critical application windows.
- Temporarily easing trade and tariff constraints on fertilizer and key input materials where appropriate and only if there becomes an incidence of inadequate domestic supply on a specific product.
- Improving coordination across federal agencies to keep essential inputs flowing efficiently to rural America.
- Explore using emergency powers to remove undue regulatory burdens including capacity caps and other unnecessary and duplicative federal regulatory burdens at domestic fertilizer plants.
Beyond the immediate challenges, recent disruptions underscore the need to strengthen agricultural supply chains and reduce vulnerabilities that can affect farmers and rural communities.
- To that end, we respectfully encourage the Administration to pursue long-term policies that improve the resilience and reliability of agricultural input supply chains, including:
- Expanding and supporting domestic fertilizer and crop input manufacturing capacity to reduce reliance on unstable global regions.
- Increasing domestic energy production and affordability, recognizing the direct connection between energy costs, fertilizer manufacturing, transportation, and farm input prices.
- Modernizing ports, inland waterways, rail networks, and rural highways to improve the reliability, efficiency, and resilience of agricultural input transportation.
- Ensuring fair, transparent, and competitive rail service for agricultural shippers, particularly in rural areas with limited transportation alternatives.
- Strengthening workforce availability through commonsense driver, labor, and training policies that recognize agricultural retailers as essential rural businesses.
- Promoting regulatory certainty and science-based decision-making so retailers and manufacturers can invest confidently in storage, handling, and distribution infrastructure.
- Supporting open and predictable trade policies for critical agricultural inputs while maintaining tools to respond quickly to global supply disruptions.
- Improving coordination across federal agencies to ensure policies affecting energy, transportation, trade, and agriculture are aligned and responsive to supply chain challenges.