(NAFB.com) – Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), the Ranking Member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, addressed the recent Agri-Pulse Ag and Food Policy Summit conference. She said one of the most important things on her mind is the price of fertilizer. “Last month, as farmers began preparations for the spring planting season, fertilizer components like urea spiked 25 percent,” she told attendees. “Ammonia, phosphate, sulfate, and potassium have also sharply eroded what little profit margin exists on the farms this year.” Klobuchar also said that, since the 1980s, the number of companies producing ammonia has declined substantially. “Today, four companies control more than three-quarters of the nitrogen fertilizer in the U.S., while potash and phosphate fertilizer markets are 100 percent controlled by these four companies,” she added. “The increased concentration in the fertilizer industry has put the farmers in a really hard situation, and the Iran war only makes that situation even worse.”