The USDA announced the first round of grant offers totaling $29 million, focusing on projects that can be completed within a short period. The grants will help small businesses produce more fertilizers, such as Water-Soluble Fertilizers (WSF) made in the US, which will increase competition, provide farmers in the domestic market with more options and fair prices, and reduce their reliance on unreliable foreign sources like Russia and Belarus. The announcement was made by Vilsack at the 2023 Commodity Classic, the same event where he first introduced the program a year earlier.

A total of $3 billion in funding was requested for initiatives that would boost the long-term availability of fertilizer made in the United States and immediately expand production for the Crop Years 2023 and 2024. Composters, complex manufacturing, farm supply blenders, and distributors were just a few of the various technologies represented in the proposals for projects related to fertilizers and nutrient alternatives.

In addition to increasing the supply of domestic fertilizer such as WSF, this project intends to create hundreds of jobs, frequently in areas where they are most needed, such as energy communities and generations of poverty. Fertilizer prices increased more than doubled between 2021 and 2022. The price of WSF in the US market increased by 53% in 2021, while in 2022, it increased by 35% due to many factors, including the Russia-Ukraine war, high energy costs, reliance on imports, a limited supply of the relevant minerals, high global demand and agricultural commodity prices, and a lack of competition in the WSF fertilizer industry.

The price of WSF in the US market in February 2023 was $780 per MT, which was 5% lesser than in January 2023.

The key fertilizers falling under the WSF are Urea Phosphate, Sulphate of potash, Calcium Nitrate, Potassium Nitrate, Mono Potassium Phosphate, Mono Ammonium Phosphate, etc.

According to ChemAnalyst, the cost of WSF might go down in March 2023 as the USDA said it would spend $29 million to make more American-made fertilizers. This means that farmers in the US might have more options and fair prices of WSF in the upcoming days.