The U.S. Department of Agriculture has awarded a New Mexico-based facility a $139 million grant to expand manufacturing of potash, a key potassium-based fertilizer largely imported by the U.S.
Intrepid Potash will use the funds to help construct a $265 million manufacturing facility near Carlsbad that would produce 220,000 tons of potash product annually.
The United States ranks third among global importers of potash, with the majority coming from Canada. The country used about 6.4 million metric tons of potash between 2023 and 2024, according to a U.S. International Trade Commission report.
The grant to Intrepid Potash is one piece of the USDA’s Fertilizer Investment & Expansion for Long-Term Domestic Supply, or FIELDS, program to develop more domestic fertilizer manufacturing. On Wednesday, the agency announced a total of $573 million in grants for eight companies spread across the U.S., representing “more than $1.34 billion in total proposed investment,” according to a news release.
Geopolitical turmoil including supply chain disruptions and intermittent tariffs led to a spike in fertilizer prices, according the American Farm Bureau Federation. In April, the Federation published a report that found 70% of American farmers could not afford all their fertilizer.
The USDA said the FIELDS program, launched in July, aims to bring down fertilizer costs and “increase long-term fertilizer availability” for farmers.
New Mexico produces more than half of domestic potash, according to the Bureau of Land Management. Between 2020 and 2024, the average New Mexico potash lease generated about $12 million in revenue, which is split almost in half between the state and federal agencies, according to the Office of Natural Resources Revenue database.
