A combination of factors around the world have made it easier. The NZ dollar has been reasonably stable recently, having fallen from its high of 18 months ago. At the same time, fertiliser component producers overseas have struggled with over-supply, due to new plants coming online and a lack of new demand, this has subsequently led to less-efficient producers constraining capacity, or plants being mothballed.
Mike Whitty, supply chain manager at fertiliser co-operative Ravensdown, says sales in New Zealand have held up relatively positively. "I have been quite surprised - I thought last year would have been more difficult."
He says dairy farmers, in particular, have returned to pasture-based farming, removing the cost of bringing in supplementary feed inputs. Sheep and especially beef returns have been positive in the previous year and horticulture and mixed arable farming enjoyed healthy returns.
If you starve your soil of nutrient, you pay a big price for recovery.
"All of these commodities are cyclical - energy, fertiliser, food. It's all supply and demand. In fertiliser, production was coming on without a demand increase."
He says producers in Saudi Arabia and Morocco had made significant investment to bring on new capacity, especially for high-analysis fertilisers such as DAP and MAP, which Ravensdown imports direct (diammonium phosphate and monoammonium phosphate, respectively), as well as phosphate rock. Morocco has the most efficient and significant reserves of phosphate rock, while Saudi Arabia has access to phosphate rock, ammonia and sulphur from oil.
North America and China are also major producers, but China has suffered lately because of a government push to reduce coal production on environmental grounds. Coal prices in China have risen as a consequence, as have the costs of getting the fertiliser products from the inland sites to export outlets.
"It's really just economics," says Mr Whitty. "They are finding it hard to compete and have cut capacity to 50 per cent. Some production has been mothballed."
This has led to volatile import costs to New Zealand, with DAP recently rising by 10 per cent having fallen by 40 per cent in the past 12 months. "It was US$450 a ton [free on board] and dropped to almost US$300. It's now about US$350."
The farm-gate price has dropped twice in the past eight months by $110 a ton.
Superphosphate rock has dropped as well, down about 15-20per cent over the past 12 months or so. Urea is 40per cent down in the past 18 months as a result of over-supply, but has recovered about $US80 a ton in the past few months.
"We are expecting a fairly stable outlook for the rest of this year. We have hit bottom on potash and high-analysis finished products, and urea is likely to be flat. The market is where it is - we have to make sure we are buying quality products and getting them to our customers at a competitive price."
Mark Wynne, CEO at Ballance Agri-Nutrients, also believes fertiliser prices are lifting off their lows. "Nutrient input prices are pretty much at decade lows as input costs - in any format. Urea and phosphate products are lifting off their lows - where they go is anyone's guess, but we are out of the bottom of the cycle."
He says the big markets on the demand side are the US, Brazil and India, with the latter two tending to vary their inputs in line with predicted market product prices, such as for maize and soybean. Those prices are starting to recover, so the renewed demand is expected to lift input prices.
On the global supply side, less-productive fertiliser plants are being retired or eased back. The Chinese coal price is also having an impact that has put a huge squeeze on urea manufacturers there. "China used to be a net exporter of urea [about 5 million tons a year], but will now need to import about 3 million tons a year. The international market can cope, but it will definitely flow through to higher prices."
Ballance operates New Zealand's sole urea manufacturing plant in Taranaki.
"There has been a big shift in product mix, with a bias towards nitrogen to maximise grass growth, a move out of commodity urea towards smarter products, such as SustaiN and PhasedN," Mr Wynne says. "This is helping farmers add that feed wedge going into winter, and again coming out the other side into spring. It's a bias towards optimising grass on farm, something New Zealand farmers are very good at, driven by budget and environmental legislation.
"Other things have changed. Many farmers have reduced their stocking rate, which is good environmentally and means they will require less supplementary feed. DairyNZ indicates stocking rates are down about 5 per cent overall, fluctuating between 3-10 per cent."
Ballance owns compound feed supplier SealesWinslow, and he says it suffered during the latest dairy downturn, with sales dipping by as much as 60 per cent compared with 2015.
"It makes protein, starch and mineral feed for in-shed feeding and for calves to get cows to higher lactation and to hold them there. Sales have been much better this season, in direct correlation to the improved dairy pay-out price."
Mr Wynne says most Kiwi farmers understand and play the long game. "If you starve your soil of nutrient, you pay a big price for recovery."