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Nutrien Ltd.
Nutrien makes and sells the fertilizer ingredients that farmers around the world need to grow crops.
Nutrien is one of the world's largest suppliers of the three main crop nutrients — potash, nitrogen and phosphate. Farmers buy these in enormous volumes to keep their fields productive, and Nutrien digs potash out of the ground in Canada, makes nitrogen from natural gas, and mines phosphate, then ships the stuff around the globe. The company sits right at the base of the food chain: whether you're a corn farmer in Iowa or a palm oil grower in Southeast Asia, you need fertilizer, and Nutrien is one of the biggest sellers there is.
Here's how it earns its money. Most of it comes from production and sales of these nutrients, priced largely by global supply and demand rather than by the company's own say-so. When crop prices are high, farmers plant more and pay up for fertilizer; when grain prices sink, they cut back. Nutrien's profitability swings with that cycle, especially on potash, where a handful of producers effectively control most of the world's supply and pricing power. That concentration is a genuine moat — building a new potash mine can cost billions and take years, so competitors can't easily show up. But it's not just a miner. Nutrien doesn't only make the product; it also sells it to farmers through a huge network of retail stores in North America, Latin America and Australia, where it sells seed, crop-protection chemicals, fertilizer and advice. That retail arm is more recurring and less volatile than the raw commodity business, and it puts Nutrien face to face with the people who actually buy the product. It's a bit like a company that both owns the factory and runs the store — it captures a cut at both ends.
The company's history is a merger story: it was formed in 2018 when PotashCorp of Saskatchewan and Agrium, Canada's largest ag retailer, joined forces. That combination created a giant that could mine cheap potash and sell it through a retail channel at the same time. Nutrien also pays a substantial dividend and has been buying back shares in recent years, returning cash to shareholders when the commodity cycle runs hot. The risk is straightforward: this is a cyclical business tied to farming economics and global prices, and a downturn in agriculture can hit it hard. Still, as populations grow and the world needs to feed itself on finite farmland, somebody has to sell the nutrients — and Nutrien is one of the loudest names in that room.
Saved answer · last researched 12 Nov 2026