MFA is looking at new and different ways to meet your nitrogen needs.

High natural gas prices, the closing of nitrogen plants and consolidation of transportation companies are making it difficult for farm suppliers to meet the nitrogen demand of their customers--and MFA is no exception.

Although MFA is a member of CF Industries, an interregional fertilizer production cooperative, MFA ownership only allows MFA to receive 22 percent of the company's nitrogen requirements from CF Industries. The other 78 percent comes from other sources.

Two nitrogen suppliers MFA relied on to supply nitrogen closed their doors during the past year due to high natural gas prices. "A year ago a facility in Pryor, Okla., closed its doors," said Bill Dunn, manager of highway transportation in MFA's transportation division. "We purchased a lot of last year's supply, but that's practically gone. Then the Crystal City [Mo.] location closed this past fall."

MFA looked to a facility in Eldorado, Ark., located 350 miles from Missouri, to supply its nitrogen needs. The problem was getting the ammonium nitrate to MFA's store locations. "Three hundred fifty miles is a long way to truck ammonium nitrate over Arkansas roads," said Dunn. "Plus there is a lack of trucks available in that part of Arkansas. We needed to find another way."

Rail became the answer. MFA is utilizing railcars from Union Pacific.

But because a lot of MFA locations are no longer located on a working rail line, MFA needed a location with the means to unload the nitrogen from a railcar to a truck to get it to these locations. Since Feb. 15, MFA has been transporting the ammonium nitrate on railcars to the Aurora feed mill. The company has set up a temporary loading site there. Existing equipment from the Springfield location is being used to load the nitrogen from the railcars to trucks.

Seven railcars can be dropped off at the site at a time. The seven railcars hold 700 tons of nitrate. That 700 tons can be loaded onto 28 trucks in one day. A local, third party will be overseeing the process six days a week to try to get the product to the stores as best he can. It takes 14 days for the railcars to go through the whole process.

"It's really become a team effort between the supplier, railroad, truckers and MFA to get this done," said Paul Johnson, MFA's vice president of plant foods. "We've taken an underutilized asset and turned it into a productive one."

But he and Bruce Hanson, vice president of transportation, pointed out this arrangement is not going to meet MFA's nitrogen demand. Customers will most likely have to turn to urea as a replacement for ammonium nitrate, nitrogen solution and anhydrous ammonia this year.

MFA is leasing a liquid storage facility that holds 32% N-solution at IC OmniModal. It is located near St. Gabriel, La., just outside of Baton Rouge on the Mississippi River.

Ships coming from international markets with N-solution MFA has purchased have been unloading at the location and into MFA's leased space since mid-February. From there, the N-solution is being sent to locations via barge, rail and truck.

MFA has also just partnered with IC RailMarine Terminal located near Convent, La. Hanson said as of late December, MFA has been purchasing urea from international markets at the location. He hopes to bring in around 45,000 to 50,000 tons of urea by the end of the season.

"We are trying everything we can to get the product to our customers in a timely manner," said Hanson. "We're using a multi-modal means of logistics to get product where it needs to go. From ship to barge to railcar to truck we're using all means of transportation to get nitrogen to our members."

"We've had to be more creative in how we get product to our customers," said Dunn. "It has and will continue to be a challenge."