Author Archives: Reuters News Agency

Ecuador’s president extends state of emergency for prisons

By Alexandra Valencia

QUITO (Reuters) – President Guillermo Lasso renewed a state of emergency throughout Ecuador’s prison system on Monday, extending it for 30 days as the country grapples to control jail violence which has left scores of inmates dead.

Lasso first imposed a state of emergency in penitentiaries at the end of September due to violence at the Penitenciaria del actions.Litoral prison, where fighting between criminal gangs in the last two months has left more than 180 prisoners dead.

Ecuador’s armed forces will continue to support police in controlling prisons.

Following the most recent incident at the Penitenciaria del Litoral, located in the city of Guayaquil, a combined force of 1,000 police officers and soldiers entered the prison.

The Constitutional Court has questioned the measures rolled out across prisons, saying that the crisis will require more than temporary emergency actions.

The gangs operating inside prisons are linked to drug trafficking, authorities say.

The decree to extends the state of emergency includes a ban on prisoners receiving mail that has not been read by security forces first, among other measures.

Ecuador’s prison system counts more than 37,000 inmates behind bars, with just 1,646 security staff, according to the government.

Lasso is pushing a plan to reduce prison violence, which includes pacifying gangs, pardoning criminals in special cases, repatriating foreign prisoners, and legal reform.

A week ago Lasso also extended a state of emergency to combat crime across the country.

(Reporting by Alexandra Valencia,; Writing by Oliver Griffin, Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Israel’s Lapid urges world to keep up pressure on Iran

LONDON (Reuters) – Israel urged world leaders to keep up pressure on Iran and not lift sanctions as part of nuclear negotiations that were set to resume in Vienna on Monday, saying that tighter supervision of Tehran was needed.

Negotiators were to convene in a last-ditch effort to salvage a 2015 nuclear deal abandoned three years later by the United States under then-President Donald Trump, who then reimposed sweeping U.S. sanctions on Iran. That led to breaches of the deal by Tehran, and dismayed the other powers involved.

Israel has warned that Iran, its arch-enemy, will try to secure a windfall in sanctions relief at the talks, without sufficiently rolling back nuclear bomb-making potential through its accelerating enrichment of uranium.

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, speaking in London alongside his British counterpart Liz Truss, said Iran was only attending the talks because they wanted access to money.

“This is what they have done in the past. And this is what they will do this time as well. The intelligence is clear, it leaves no doubt,” he told reporters after signing a Memorandum of Understanding on trade, technology and defense with Britain.

“A nuclear Iran will thrust the entire Middle East into a nuclear arms race; we will find ourselves in a new Cold War. But this time the bomb will be in the hands of religious fanatics who are engaged in terrorism as a way of life,” Lapid said.

“The world must prevent this and it can prevent this: tighter sanctions, tighter supervision, conduct any talks from a position of strength.”

In Jerusalem earlier on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett cautioned world powers to beware of what he described as Iranian “nuclear blackmail.”

Iran says it is enriching uranium solely for civil uses.

Truss said Britain was “absolutely determined” to prevent Iran from securing a nuclear weapon.

“As far as I am concerned, these talks are the last opportunity for the Iranians to come to the table and agree the JCPOA…,” she said, referring to the 2015 deal. “We will look at all options if that doesn’t happen.”

(Reporting by Paul Sandle in London and Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Latvia calls for permanent U.S. troops to guard against Russia threat

By Sabine Siebold

ADAZI MILITARY BASE, Latvia (Reuters) – Latvia needs a permanent U.S. military presence to deter Russia and wants to boost its defenses with U.S. Patriot missiles, Defense Minister Artis Pabriks said on Monday as NATO’s chief visited allied troops in the Baltic country.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was due to arrive in Latvia’s capital Riga late on Monday before a meeting on Tuesday with 29 NATO counterparts. The alliance is alarmed by a Russian military build-up on Ukraine’s borders.

“We need additional international assistance,” Pabriks told Reuters. “We would like to have a permanent United States (military) presence in our country. And sea and air defense means basically going down to such systems as Patriot (surface-to-air missiles).”

NATO troops were rehearsing battle skills in a snowy Latvian woodland with camouflaged tanks and live rounds, with 1,500 troops seeking to stop an attack on Riga by disrupting and stalling the unidentified adversary’s advance north of the city.

“Deterrence is critical,” said Canadian Lieutenant Colonel John Benson, commander of the NATO battlegroup in Latvia.

Prompted by Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and Moscow’s support for separatists in eastern Ukraine, NATO has deployed four multinational battalion-size battlegroups to defend Poland and the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia since July 2017.

Moscow says it has no intention of invading the Baltics or Poland and accuses NATO of destabilizing Europe by moving troops closer to Russia’s borders. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said there was “no imminent threat” against NATO.

In May, Russia amassed 100,000 troops on its border with Ukraine, the highest number since the annexation of Crimea in 2014, Western officials say. NATO says there was another large military build-up on Ukraine’s border this month.

The Baltic states are seen as NATO’s most vulnerable flank as they are linked to the alliance’s main territory only by a land corridor of around 60 km (37 miles) between Poland and Lithuania known as the Suwalki gap.

Military experts warn that Russia, via Belarus, might capture the gap, gaining a land corridor to its heavily fortified exclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea.

U.S. troops are stationed in Germany but might not reach the Baltics fast enough in the event of such an attack, experts say.

“We have revisionism at this moment going on in Russia … from that perspective we cannot be late here,” Pabriks said, referring to a statement by Russian President Vladimir Putin that he would reverse the collapse of the Soviet Union if he had a chance to alter modern Russian history.

(Reporting by Sabine Siebold, Editing by Timothy Heritage)

Belarus announces military drills with Russia near Ukraine border

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Belarus on Monday announced joint military drills with close ally Russia on its southern border with Ukraine and accused the NATO military alliance of building up offensive capabilities near its borders.

U.S., NATO and Ukrainian officials say Russia has built up forces near Ukraine, sparking fears of a looming attack. Moscow denies any such plan. Belarus is itself locked in a row with the European Union over migrants camped at its western border.

Casting it as a response to new military deployments in countries to the west and south of Belarus, Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin said Minsk would hold an exercise with Russia in the “medium term.” He gave no specific date.

“We see troop formations around our state borders… We can only be concerned by the militarization of our neighboring countries, which is why are forced to plan measures in response,” he said in comments on his ministry’s website.

NATO member Lithuania, which lies to the west of Belarus, said on Sunday the Atlantic alliance needed to adjust its stance towards Belarus, whose military, it said, was becoming more integrated with Russia’s armed forces.

On Monday, Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko said Minsk would not sit idly on the sidelines if the simmering conflict in eastern Ukraine erupted or a war broke out with the West at Russia’s borders.

“…it is clear whose side Belarus will be on,” he said in a clear nod to Russia, whose financial and political backing helped him weather huge protests against his rule that broke out last autumn.

“They understand this, that’s why they’ve begun strengthening their northern Belarus-Ukraine border,” Lukashenko was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.

The comments appeared to contrast with the more neutral stance taken by Lukashenko after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and its backing for separatist forces in Ukraine’s east.

Minsk, like most of the world, still recognizes Crimea as Ukrainian territory.

(Reporting by Maxim Rodionov; Writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Gareth Jones)

New caravan sets off from Mexico as officials struggle with immigration claims

By Jose Luis Gonzalez

TAPACHULA, Mexico (Reuters) – Some 2,000 migrants and asylum seekers departed the southern Mexican city of Tapachula near the Guatemalan border overnight on Sunday in the latest in a series of caravans setting out for the United States.

By Monday morning, the caravan had advanced about 25 kilometers (15 mi) to reach the town of Huehuetan, according to a Reuters witness.

The majority of its members were families from Central America and the Caribbean fleeing violence, poverty and growing hunger crises in their home countries.

For months, migrants and human rights advocates have denounced the “prison-like” conditions in Tapachula. Under Mexican rules, migrants must wait to process their claims – often for months – before being able to relocate to other parts of the country without fear of deportation.

Thousands of migrants waited on Monday in an hours-long line inside a stadium where immigration officials had set up a processing center.

“In Tapachula, there’s no life for migrants. We don’t have work, we don’t have money to pay for housing,” said Atis, a Haitian migrant waiting in line who declined to give his last name.

“We’re waiting here at immigration, but if there’s no other option, then we’ll leave here on foot, in another caravan.”

Last week, the Mexican government transported hundreds of migrants from Tapachula to other states in efforts to head off the formation of more caravans. But tens of thousands of migrants still remain in the city.

(Reporting by Jose Luis Gonzalez; Writing by Laura Gottesdiener; Editing by Daina Solomon and Dan Grebler)

WHO flags Omicron risk, countries tighten curbs, Biden urges vaccination

By Stephanie Nebehay, Alexander Winning and Wendell Roelf

GENEVA/JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) -The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday the Omicron coronavirus variant carried a very high risk of infection surges as more countries closed their borders, reviving fears over economic recovery from the two-year pandemic.

Airlines were scrambling to limit the impact of the variant on their networks, while delays in bookings threatened an already fragile recovery for global tourism.

But shares in airlines bounced back with the rest of the market on Monday after a sharp sell-off on Friday as hopes grew that the variant might prove to be milder than initially feared.

The WHO advised its 194 member nations that any surge in infections could have severe consequences, but said no deaths had yet been linked to the new variant.

“Omicron has an unprecedented number of spike mutations, some of which are concerning for their potential impact on the trajectory of the pandemic,” the WHO said.

“The overall global risk related to the new variant of concern Omicron is assessed as very high.”

Further research was needed to understand Omicron’s potential to escape protection against immunity induced by vaccines and previous infections, it said, adding that more data was expected in coming weeks.

U.S. President Joe Biden said the new variant was a cause for concern but not panic and that it would sooner or later arrive in the United States, urging people to get vaccinated. He said it would be weeks before the world knew how effective current vaccines would be against it.

“Obviously, we’re on high alert,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease official and Biden’s chief medical adviser, told ABC News. “It’s inevitable that, sooner or later, it’s going to spread widely.”

An infectious disease expert from South Africa, where scientists first identified Omicron, said it was too early to say whether symptoms were more severe than previous variants, but it did appear to be more transmissible.

Professor Salim Abdool Karim also said existing vaccines were probably effective at stopping Omicron from causing severe illness. Scientists have said it could take weeks to understand the severity of Omicron.

South African cases were likely to exceed 10,000 a day this week, rocketing up from barely 300 a day two weeks ago, Karim added.

But South African President Cyril Ramaphosa denounced “unjustified and unscientific” travel bans that damage tourism-reliant economies. His country has said it is being punished for its scientific ability to detect new variants.

After a virtual meeting on Monday, health ministers from the Group of Seven bloc of wealthy nations praised South Africa for its “exemplary work” in detecting the variant and alerting others.

JITTERY MARKETS

Fears the new variant might be resistant to vaccines helped wipe roughly $2 trillion off global stock markets on Friday but markets settled down again on Monday, even after Japan said it would close its borders.

Other countries also imposed travel and other restrictions, worried that Omicron could spread fast even among people with immunity.

Travelers stranded at Johannesburg international airport said they felt helpless as flights from South Africa were cancelled.

“We don’t know what to do, we are just waiting here,” said Ntabiseng Kabeli, a stranded passenger from Lesotho.

Portugal found 13 cases of the variant at a Lisbon football club. Spain, Sweden, Scotland and Austria also reported their first cases.

Japan described its ban on arrivals by foreigners as precautionary.

Health Minister Shigeyuki Goto said tests would determine if a traveler from Namibia was Japan’s first Omicron case.

In Israel, a ban on arrivals by foreigners took effect overnight.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed concern that restrictions would leave southern African countries isolated.

“The people of Africa cannot be blamed for the immorally low level of vaccinations available in Africa – and they should not be penalized for identifying and sharing crucial science and health information with the world,” he said.

Guterres has long warned about the dangers of vaccine inequality around the world and that low immunization rates are “a breeding ground for variants.”

More than 261 million people in over 210 countries have been reported to be infected by the coronavirus since the first cases were identified in China in December 2019 and 5,456,515​ have died, according to a Reuters tally.

The new variant was discovered just as many parts of Europe were suffering a fourth wave of coronavirus infections as winter grips the continent in the runup to Christmas, with more people gathering indoors and increasing the risk of infection.

European Central Bank chief Christine Lagarde tried to reassure investors that the euro zone could cope with a resurgence of infections.

“We now know our enemy and what measures to take,” she told Italian broadcaster RAI late on Sunday. “We are all better equipped to respond to a risk of a fifth wave or the Omicron variant.”

(Reporting by Reuters bureaus; Writing by Himani Sarkar, Catherine Evans and Nick Macfie; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Peter Graff)

NASA launches test mission of asteroid-deflecting spacecraft

By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -A spacecraft that must ultimately crash to succeed was launched late on Tuesday from California on a NASA mission to demonstrate the world’s first planetary defense system, designed to deflect an asteroid from a potential doomsday collision with Earth.

The DART spacecraft soared into the night sky at 10:21 p.m. Pacific time on Tuesday (1:21 a.m. Eastern/0621 GMT Wednesday) from Vandenberg U.S. Space Force Base, about 150 miles northwest of Los Angeles, carried aboard a SpaceX-owned Falcon 9 rocket.

The launch was shown live on NASA TV.

The DART payload, about the size of a vending machine, was released from the booster a few minutes after launch to begin a 10-month journey into space, some 6.8 million miles (11 million km) from Earth.

Moments later the rocket’s reusable lower stage flew back to Earth and safely touched down on a landing vessel floating in the Pacific in what has become a routine part of the cost-cutting launch sequence pioneered by SpaceX.

DART will fly under the guidance of NASA’s flight directors until the last hours of its odyssey, when control will be handed over to an autonomous on-board navigation system.

The mission’s finale will test spacecraft’s ability to alter an asteroid’s trajectory with sheer kinetic force, plowing into it at high speed to nudge the space boulder off course just enough to keep our planet out of harm’s way.

Cameras mounted on the impactor and on a briefcase-sized mini-spacecraft to be released from DART about 10 days beforehand will record the collision and beam images of it back to Earth.

The asteroid that DART is aiming for poses no actual threat and is tiny compared with the cataclysmic Chicxulub asteroid that struck Earth some 66 million years ago, leading to extinction of the dinosaurs. But scientists say smaller asteroids are far more common and of greater theoretical concern in the near term.

DART’s target is an asteroid “moonlet” the size of a football stadium that orbits a chunk of rock five times larger in a binary asteroid system named Didymos, the Greek word for twin.

The team behind DART, short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test, chose the Didymos system because its relative proximity to Earth and dual-asteroid configuration make it ideal for observing the results of the impact.

BUMPING ASTEROID MOONLET

The plan is to fly the DART spacecraft directly into the moonlet, called Dimorphos, at 15,000 miles per hour (24,000 kph), bumping it hard enough to shift its orbital track around the larger asteroid.

Cameras on the impactor and on a briefcase-sized mini-spacecraft released from DART about 10 days beforehand will record the collision and beam images back to Earth. Ground-based telescopes will measure how much the moonlet’s orbit around Didymos changes.

The DART team expects to shorten Dimorphos’ orbital track by 10 minutes but would consider at least 73 seconds a success. A small nudge to an asteroid millions of miles away would be sufficient to safely reroute it.

DART is the latest of several NASA missions of recent years to explore and interact with asteroids, primordial rocky remnants from the solar system’s formation 4.6 billion years ago.

Last month, NASA launched a probe on a voyage to the Trojan asteroid clusters orbiting near Jupiter, while the grab-and-go spacecraft OSIRES-REx is on its way back to Earth with a sample collected last October from the asteroid Bennu.

The Dimorphos moonlet is one of the smallest astronomical objects to receive a permanent name and is one of 27,500 known near-Earth asteroids of all sizes tracked by NASA.

Although all none poses a foreseeable hazard to humankind, NASA estimates many more asteroids remain undetected in the near-Earth vicinity.

The DART spacecraft, cube-shaped with two rectangular solar arrays, is due to rendezvous with the Didymos-Dimorphos pair in late September 2022.

NASA put the entire cost of the DART project at $330 million, well below that of many of the space agency’s most ambitious science missions.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; editing by Gerry Doyle)

Israel signs defense pact with Morocco, as cooperation with new Arab partners builds

By Ahmed Eljechtimi

RABAT (Reuters) – Israel signed a defense pact with Morocco on Wednesday, its latest public display of readiness to advance national security interests in tandem with Arab countries that have drawn closer to it amid shared concern over Iran and Islamist militancy.

The memorandum of understanding could herald intelligence cooperation, arms deals and joint military training, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said in Rabat.

His two-day visit came within weeks of an Israeli-hosted air force drill that was attended by an Emirati general, and naval maneuvers by Israel, UAE and Bahrain. The two Gulf states, along with Morocco and Sudan, forged relations with Israel last year.

After the signing ceremony with Abdellatif Loudiyi, Morocco’s defense administration minister, a senior Gantz aide said he saw a Moroccan market for Israeli counter-insurgency know-how.

“This is a deal that will enable us to help them with what they need from us, of course subject to our interests in the region,” the aide, Zohar Palti, told Israel’s Kan broadcaster.

“Morocco has for years been battling terror on several fronts, and is a country that is struggling against al Qaeda and global jihadi groups.”

Rabat had no immediate comment on Wednesday’s agreement. Its Royal Armed Forces said the countries previously signed an memorandum on cyber cooperation and data security – the latter a possible preamble to purchases of high-end Israeli military technologies.

Israeli media have speculated about possible sales to Morocco of pilotless aircraft or missile defense systems.

The chief of Israel’s air force, Major-General Amikam Norkin, declined to discuss any such specific prospects at a conference on Tuesday, saying only that he favored “airpower diplomacy” with Arab partners to help offset Iran’s clout.

“I think that this (Gantz visit to Rabat) is an opportunity,” Norkin said, recalling how, at this month’s Dubai Airshow, his Moroccan counterpart had come to introduce himself and “added a few sentences in Hebrew” when they conversed.

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid travelled to Morocco in August for the first visit by Israel’s top diplomat to that country since 2003.

(Additional reporting by Dan Williams and Maayan Lubell; Editing by Jeffrey Heller, Alex Richardson and Alistair Bell)

Three white men convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia

By Jonathan Allen and Rich McKay

BRUNSWICK, Ga. (Reuters) – Three white men were convicted of murder on Wednesday for chasing and shooting a Black man named Ahmaud Arbery as he ran in their neighborhood, with a Georgia jury rejecting a self-defense claim in a trial that once again probed America’s divisive issues of race and guns.

The verdict was delivered by the jury, consisting of one Black man and 11 white men and women, after about a two-week trial in the coastal city of Brunswick in a case that hinged on whether the defendants had a right to confront the unarmed 25-year-old avid jogger last year on a hunch he was fleeing a crime.

Gregory McMichael, 65, his son Travis McMichael, 35, and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan, 52, were charged with murder, aggravated assault, false imprisonment and criminal intent to commit a felony. They face a minimum sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole.

Jurors reached their verdict on the second day of deliberations.

There was never any dispute that the younger McMichael fired his pump-action shotgun three times at Arbery at close range on Feb. 23, 2020, in the suburban community of Satilla Shores. It was captured on a graphic cellphone video made by Bryan, stoking outrage when it emerged more than two months later and the public learned that none of the three men had been arrested.

Lawyers for the McMichaels argued that the killing was justified after Arbery ran past the McMichaels’ driveway in a neighborhood that had experienced a spate of property thefts. Both McMichaels grabbed their guns and jumped in their pickup truck in pursuit, with Bryan, unarmed, joining moments later.

Prosecutors said the defendants had “assumed the worst” about a Black man out on a Sunday afternoon jog. He was chased by the defendants for about five minutes around the looping streets.

The three men face a federal trial next year on hate-crime charges, accused in an indictment of violating Arbery’s civil rights by embarking on the fatal chase because of his “race and color.”

Some Black Americans used a despairing phrase to describe a case seen as another example of Black people falling under suspicion while innocently doing an everyday activity: “running while Black.” Arbery’s name was added to those invoked in nationwide anti-racism protests in 2020 that erupted after the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, both of whom were Black.

The prosecution was widely seen as another test case in how the U.S. justice system handles instances of unarmed Black people killed by white people. During the trial, there was almost no evidence presented or discussion of race as a motive.

The issue of race hung over the trial. A nearly all-white jury was selected, and one of the defense lawyers repeatedly, but unsuccessfully, sought the removal of Black pastors and civil rights leaders including the Rev. Jesse Jackson from the courtroom.

Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley said he was required to accept the “race-neutral” reasons defense lawyers gave for the removal of all but one potential Black juror. Black activists said it showed again how the justice system was skewed against Black Americans.

CITIZEN’S ARREST

Defense lawyers cited a Georgia law codified during the 19th century U.S. Civil War that allowed anyone to make a citizen’s arrest of someone they have reasonable suspicion is fleeing a serious crime they committed. The law was repealed in the wake of Arbery’s killing.

The elder McMichael’s lawyer, Laura Hogue, told jurors the defendants had a duty to catch Arbery, who she portrayed as a frightening burglar with “long dirty toenails,” using a description from the autopsy report.

Lead prosecutor Linda Dunikoski chided the defense for aiming to “malign the victim,” calling that “offensive.”

No evidence ever emerged connecting Arbery to any Satilla Shore thefts.

Travis McMichael, a former U.S. Coast Guard mechanic and the only defendant to take the witness stand, tearfully testified that he fired in self defense as Arbery grabbed the shotgun he was carrying while chasing him in the truck.

Under cross-examination by a prosecutor, he conceded he told the police hours after the shooting he could not say for sure if Arbery actually grabbed the gun.

(Reporting by Rich McKay in Brunswick; Editing by Will Dunham and Cynthia Osterman)

Fertilizer shortage may lead to spring scramble on North America’s farms

By Rod Nickel

(Reuters) – A global shortage of nitrogen fertilizer is driving prices to record levels, prompting North America’s farmers to delay purchases and raising the risk of a spring scramble to apply the crop nutrient before planting season.

Farmers apply nitrogen to boost yields of corn, canola and wheat, and higher fertilizer costs could translate into higher meat and bread prices.

World food prices hit a 10-year high in October, according to the United Nations food agency, led by increases in cereal crops like wheat and vegetable oils.

The Texas Arctic Blast in February and Hurricane Ida in August disrupted U.S. fertilizer production. Then, prices of natural gas, a key input in producing nitrogen, soared in Europe due to high demand and low supplies. Global urea prices this month topped $1,000 per tonne for the first time, according to BMO Capital Markets. Russia and China have curbed exports.

In the United States, nitrogen fertilizer supplies are adequate for applications before winter, said Daren Coppock, CEO at U.S.-based Agricultural Retailers Association. Applying fertilizer before winter reduces farmers’ spring workload.

But with prices so high, some farmers are delaying purchases, risking a scramble for supplies during their busiest time of year, Coppock said.

Global nitrogen fertilizer sales were worth $53 billion in 2020, and prices are at least 80% higher so far this year, according to Argus Media.

Normally, MKC, a Kansas farm cooperative, sells fertilizer to farmers for payment up front with delivery months down the road, giving growers certainty about a key expense.

With prices soaring, MKC has scaled back its pre-paid sales out of caution.

“You just don’t know what the price is going to be. It has put a lot of retailers in a tough spot,” said Troy Walker, MKC’s director of retail fertilizer.

Delaying fertilizer purchases until spring runs the risk of further supply chain congestion as farmers rush to apply fertilizer and plant seed during a tight window.

“There’s going to be a lot of people who wait and see,” Coppock said. “(But) if everybody’s scrambling in the spring to get enough, somebody’s corn isn’t going to get covered.”

Wisconsin farmer Jim Zimmerman decided to bite the bullet and secure all his fertilizer for spring, this year.

“It’s next year’s prices I’m worried about,” Zimmerman said. “It could get worse.”

Nutrien Ltd, the largest U.S. farm supplier, has secured less nitrogen fertilizer than usual for spring delivery because manufacturers are making less available, said Jeff Tarsi, the company’s senior vice president of retail. Sales to farmers are likely to occur closer to spring than usual, he said.

The one nitrogen product that is running short in North America is urea ammonium nitrate (UAN), said Kreg Ruhl, crop nutrients manager at Illinois-based farm cooperative Growmark. UAN is a liquid form that is convenient for farmers to apply.

The U.S. International Trade Commission is conducting an anti-dumping investigation into UAN from Russia and Trinidad and Tobago, at the request of U.S. producer CF Industries.

Importers are reluctant to book shipments into 2022, because they may have to pay retroactive duties if CF wins its case, Ruhl said.

Farmers could reduce their fertilizer needs by planting more soybeans and less corn, but there is little evidence many plan to do so.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture forecast U.S. corn plantings would decline to 92 million acres in 2022, from 93.3 million in 2021.

Waiting until spring to buy fertilizer could disappoint some farmers, said Matt Conacher, senior fertilizer manager at Federated Cooperatives Limited, a Canadian wholesale seller.

“My advice is, if you can get your fertilizer now, do so.”

(Reporting by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg; Additional reporting by Julie Ingwersen in Chicago; Editing by Caroline Stauffer and Lisa Shumaker)