The Oil Drum: Europe

I only have a little bit of outdated information, based on someone I knew involved with Russian fertilizer exports from Kaliningrad in the mid-1990s. A very much cash based business, if you understand what is meant behind the polite term 'cash.'

And that information is, that if you are looking for hard numbers from a major world fertilizer producer and exporter, forget it. The business was (and likely still is) remarkably opaque, in part because the customers are countries which find trading with Russia about their only alternative (Bulgaria, for example), or are simply desperate for fertilizer, like China, and in both cases, their numbers are equally opaque.

Another reason, perhaps surprisingly, is that much of the fertilizer he was involved in exporting was essentially not used in Germany (at least according to him) - he talked about how German customs was utterly uninterested in the sacks of it he used to carry back to Germany in his car - including ammonium nitrate. It wasn't illegal, it was simply not used, and thus had no value in the eyes of the customs agents.

At least in Germany, fertilizer use is not encouraged. Noted, for example in this passage -
'In Germany, legislation rules many environmental aspects of agricultural plant production, and special laws are in force concerning fertilizer use, soil protection, and pesticide use. In sugar beet, nitrogen fertilizer use has decreased greatly and may be reduced further in some regions. A further reduction of potassium and phosphorus fertilizer use does not seem to be appropriate.'
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=15044219

Admittedly, Germany is not typical, but I'm not sure that that fertilizer production has been offshored as much as it has been downsized.

Which would fit into the typical German style of handling future resource restraints - seeking substitutes while reducing use. Much like home insulation standards to reduce the need for gas for heating.

These are not crash programs, by any means, but they at least tend in the right direction.

Of course, France is often at the other end of this spectrum, so it may all balance out in the larger view.