The Fertilizer Wars escalated on Friday. Responding to growing member anxiety, the Agricultural Retailers Association Board of Directors adopted the following motion: "A high percentage of the ARA board members expressed concern in a survey on crop nutrient producer consolidation and direct ARA to respond with educational efforts to ARA membership outlining the avenues for ARA members to express their opinions to the appropriate federal agencies and officials."
The ARA press release on this development included extensive information for their membership on how to confidentially contact the regulatory agencies involved and express their views.
I have been putting pressure on the ARA board to get involved. They have talked about it in board meetings and even though these meetings have been somewhat confidential, I believe that most of the retail members of the board are against further consolidation during these tough times in our economy and especially since most dealers are hung with very expensive fertilizer inventory.
It's also my opinion that this issue has become a lose-lose from the perspective of the board. There are members who want them to fight the big companies or they say they will drop out and there is, of course, members of the board who are afraid of some form of payback if they fight it ,so, one way or another there will be some upset members over these consolidation deals being discussed. I had hoped that ARA would fight this hard like some of us wanted and then I remembered that give and take is the way everything works in our nation's capital.
I have read ARA's official communication and have taken their advice. I have left messages at the numbers provided for the FTC and I have e-mailed my Senator showing my opposition. I think that those of us who are against more consolidation had better put our efforts where our mouth is and do something ourselves.