When CHS and OCP North America announced plans this week to build the first U.S. phosphate fertilizer plant in nearly 40 years, the milestone drew a governor, a secretary of agriculture and a deputy secretary to a hot Louisiana dais. But for ag retailers and the cooperative network, the more consequential story isn’t the ribbon-cutting — it’s what it means that the nation’s largest farmer-owned cooperative is now moving into fertilizer manufacturing, and routing the earnings back through the channel that sells it.
“It is a reflection of the scale you need to work at in today’s environment,” CHS President and CEO Jay Debertin says. “Size doesn’t mean everything when it comes to business operations, but you have to have enough size and scale to be relevant.”
Value that flows back to the channel
Asked to put the goal in plain terms for the retail network and farmer-owners, Debertin returns to one word: value.
“The goal is where we could find value, because that’s got to drive the decision,” he says. “Where we can drive value in the course of supplying the products that our farmers, our owners need — phosphate-based fertilizers, in this particular case.”
The plant itself is sized to produce up to 1.3 million tons of phosphate-based fertilizer a year and will come with a $450 million construction estimate. The venture is structured as a roughly 50-50 joint venture.
“Individual farmers cannot invest in the production of phosphate-based fertilizers the way we can,” he says. “So when we do it successfully, adding value, those farmers get that benefit that they otherwise would never be able to get. And those earnings go back to those farmers that buy from us and that own us.”
Because CHS is a cooperative, the earnings from the venture are designed to flow back to the businesses that buy from it.
“That’s the benefit for everybody that buys from CHS, whether it be on the retail arm or local cooperatives that support us,” Debertin says. “They will participate in it.”
Not The Co-op’s First Backward Integration
Debertin points to precedent as CHS has done this before — most notably in nitrogen.
“We have a terrific joint venture with CF Industries where we backward integrated into the production of urea,” he says. “Now the people that own CHS and buy from CHS can participate in that earning stream. We will also now be able to do it in phosphate-based fertilizers.”
The pattern is the pitch: identify a product the network already moves in volume, integrate into its manufacturing through a partner that knows how to build and run the plants, and pull the margin back into the cooperative system.
“Every opportunity doesn’t [work] — some we pass on where we don’t think we’re going to bring value,” he says. “This one, we absolutely believe that it will and it can.”
Complementary Strengths
Debertin says CHS has long bought phosphate fertilizers from OCP and marketed it to customers; the two companies moved to a joint venture when OCP began looking for a way to bring manufacturing into the U.S.
OCP Group, the Morocco-based parent, would supply phosphoric acid and handle the manufacturing.
“OCP knows and is good at manufacturing the phosphate-based fertilizers — they do it all around the world,” he says. “CHS, on the other hand, is focused on marketing the products across a large part of the United States, and we have a very committed local cooperative network and direct producers that support us.”
“We will each have rights to 50% of the product coming off the plant,” Debertin says. The remaining volume would move through OCP North America’s own distribution.
Domestic Fertilizer Supply As A Policy Priority
The project aligns with a federal push to expand domestic fertilizer capacity, and CHS has applied for support through USDA’s Fertilizer Investment & Expansion for Long-term Domestic Supply, or FIELDS, program. Deputy Secretary Stephen Vaden — who has been vocal on phosphate — joined Secretary Brooke Rollins and Gov. Jeff Landry at the announcement.
He frames the FIELDS program as backing ventures that can endure.
“They’ve got to be good ventures — they can stand the test of time,” he says. “We’re in this business for a long, long time. We’ve been doing it for 100 years. We’re going to do it for another 100 years.”
But Debertin declines to tie the project’s fate to a grant, which being awarded a grant is a decision the partnership is still awaiting.
“We’re not crossing that bridge,” he says. “We’ve applied for it. We want to see if we’re awarded anything and what that means to it, but I don’t want to get in front of the USDA in any way.”
Timing — And What Happens Next
Debertin says the partners hope to break ground in the first or second calendar quarter of 2027, followed by roughly 24 months of construction — putting startup no earlier than late 2028 or 2029.
“Permitting is in progress. We’d like to hear from USDA. We want to make sure community support is there,” Debertin says. “We just got some work to do before construction would begin, because those stakeholders — particularly the local ones — are important to the success.”
On construction risk, he adds: “It’s probably not any less than [24 months]. We hope not much more, but construction cycles have a little bit of unpredictability.”
The Bigger Read For Retail
For an ag retail channel navigating consolidation, trade pressure and shifting supplier dynamics, the signal is hard to miss: the cooperative isn’t just distributing fertilizer anymore. It’s making it — and inviting the network to share in the returns.
Debertin says the announcement of the phosphate fertilizer plant illustrates the direction of the industry—and how it shows up to farmers.
“To do it better than we’re doing it today — which is what this is about — is to bring more value to the people that are producing that food,” he said. “That’s got to be a focus for us.”
