Reviewed September 2026 against the USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 and Statista’s global fertilizer production series.

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Countries That Produce Fertilizer

By Farmonaut Research & Content Team · Published 9 March 2026 · Updated 28 September 2026

Fertilizer is produced worldwide, but a few countries anchor it: China leads both nitrogen and phosphate rock output, Canada leads potash at about 15 million tonnes in 2025, and India, Russia and the United States round out nitrogen supply. None of these rankings are static, and below we show exactly where to check next year’s numbers as they’re released.

This page answers the specific question people search for — which countries produce fertilizer and how much each makes — with sourced tonnage figures rather than a general explainer. We name the leading producer for each nutrient, show the countries behind it, and give you a calculator for judging how exposed your own supply chain is to any single country’s output.

Fertilizer Production by Country: The Top Producers

China is the world’s largest fertilizer producer. In 2025 it made an estimated 49 million tonnes of nitrogen as ammonia, close to a third of the world’s 160 million tonnes, and mined about 110 million tonnes of phosphate rock, 44% of the world total, according to the US Geological Survey’s Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 (USGS nitrogen; USGS phosphate rock). Potash is the exception: Canada leads it with about 15 million tonnes of the world’s 49 million (USGS potash).

The columns are not directly comparable. USGS counts nitrogen by nitrogen content, phosphate as marketable rock and potash as potassium oxide equivalent, and all 2025 figures are estimates. Morocco matters more than its output suggests: it holds about 50 billion of the world’s 73 billion tonnes of phosphate rock reserves. The United States is a top-four producer of nitrogen and phosphate rock but mined only about 0.5 million tonnes of potash in 2025, so it imports most of what its farms use, chiefly from Canada.

Largest Fertilizer Producers in 2022

For searches about the largest producer of fertilizer in the world in 2022, the answer is the same as today: China led nitrogen and phosphate rock, and Canada led potash. These are the 2022 figures from the USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2024.

Two things changed between 2022 and 2025. Russia’s potash output rose from about 6.8 to about 10 million tonnes, and world potash production grew from 40.9 to about 49 million tonnes. USGS also notes that sanctions on Belarus and Russia pushed potash prices up in the first half of 2022, and that Belarus later shifted exports to rail shipments to China and Russian ports. As with the 2025 table above, the three columns use different units and should not be added together.

Countries That Produce Fertilizer

“Fertilizer” is really three separate markets — nitrogen, phosphate, and potash — and each has a different leading country. Global production across all three totaled 207.7 million tonnes in 2023, according to Statista: 120 million tonnes of nitrogen fertilizer, 45 million tonnes of phosphate fertilizer, and 43 million tonnes of potash fertilizer.

Which Country Produces the Most Fertilizer, By Nutrient

• Nitrogen: China, India, Russia, and the United States are the largest producers, in that order (USGS, 2025). Nitrogen is the largest of the three nutrient categories by volume — 120 million tonnes globally in 2023, per Statista.
• Phosphate: China mined about 110 million tonnes of phosphate rock in 2025, up from 105 million in 2024, according to the USGS — by far the largest single-country total on this page. Morocco, home to the OCP Group, holds the world’s largest phosphate rock reserves and is the leading exporter, even though its production tonnage is smaller than China’s.
• Potash: Canada produced about 15 million tonnes of potash (K2O equivalent) in 2025, per the USGS, making it the leading single-country source. Russia is second at about 10 million tonnes, followed by China and Belarus.

Where Fertilizer Comes From: Nitrogen

Nitrogen fertilizer — ammonia and urea — is manufactured, not mined: producers combine natural gas (or coal, in China’s case) with atmospheric nitrogen via the Haber-Bosch process. That means nitrogen supply tracks energy prices closely.

• China’s nitrogen sector runs on coal-based ammonia plants and state-directed capacity, which keeps it the largest single producer and a price-setter in Asian markets.
• The United States uses natural gas as its feedstock. US Gulf Coast ammonia plants benefit from domestic gas prices that are typically well below those in Europe, which supported a wave of new capacity investment through the mid-2020s.
• India combines large domestic urea capacity with substantial imports to cover its farm sector’s needs — a hybrid model rather than a self-sufficient one.
• Russia remains a major nitrogen exporter; it produced about 15 million tonnes of nitrogen as ammonia in 2025, level with India, according to the USGS.

Phosphate and Potash: Where the Rock Is

Unlike nitrogen, phosphate and potash are mined from finite rock deposits, so geology — not energy prices — sets the map of who can produce them.

• Phosphate rock: China mined about 110 million tonnes of phosphate rock in 2025 (USGS). Morocco’s OCP Group controls the largest known phosphate rock reserves on Earth and is the top exporter to Europe, the Americas, and Asia, even though its production volume trails China’s.
• Potash: Canada produced about 15 million tonnes (K2O) in 2025 (USGS), almost entirely from Saskatchewan’s underground and solution mines. Russia is the next-largest producer, followed by China and Belarus; sanctions and export restrictions on Belarusian potash since 2022 have shifted trade flows toward Canadian supply for North American, Brazilian, and Asian buyers.

US phosphate rock output has held at about 20 million tonnes a year as Florida producers work through shrinking, lower-grade reserves, and imports have risen. US potash output was about 0.5 million tonnes (K2O) in 2025, leaving the country reliant on imports for more than 90% of the potash it uses, according to the USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries, released each January, at usgs.gov/faqs/what-us-geological-survey-mineral-commodity-summaries.

Why Fertilizer Origin Matters for Buyers

• Phosphate supply is dominated by two countries — China for volume, Morocco for reserves and exports — which means any disruption to either has an outsized effect on global availability.
• Potash trade has been reshaped by sanctions on Belarus since 2022, pushing more demand onto Canadian and Russian supply.
• Nitrogen is the most geographically distributed of the three, but the most exposed to natural gas and coal price swings, since it’s synthesized rather than mined.

Supply-Concentration Risk Calculator

Use your own sourcing mix to see how exposed you are if your top supplier country has a disruption — enter the share of your nitrogen, phosphate, or potash tonnage that comes from your single largest-source country.

Key Insights & Pro Tips

Essential Benefits and Visual Summaries

• ✔ Resilient Crop Yields: A 207.7-million-tonne global fertilizer base (2023, Statista) supports stable yields even during input price spikes.
• 🌱 Traceable Sourcing: Country-level production data lets buyers document exactly where their fertilizer inputs originate.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

The countries that produce fertilizer are not a fixed list — they’re a set of rankings that shift with trade policy and energy prices. On the latest USGS data (2025 estimates): China leads nitrogen (about 49 million tonnes) and phosphate rock (about 110 million tonnes), Canada leads potash (about 15 million tonnes K2O), and India, Russia, Morocco and the United States follow in one nutrient or another.

What won’t go stale is the method: check USGS’s January Mineral Commodity Summaries for country tonnages, check Statista and FAOSTAT for global nutrient totals, and treat any single-country claim about “the top fertilizer producer” with the question of which nutrient it actually means.