Via the Foreign Policy Blog:

• It takes five years to get a phosphate (fertilizer) plant up and running
• Ammonia costs have tripled over the past decade
• Sulphur costs have gone from $55 to $450 in the past year
• Ocean shipping costs have gone from $35 to $100
• Morocco, “the Saudi Arabia of phosphate,” has raised phosphate prices from $55 to $250 a ton. They’re headed for $400 a ton
• China has imposed a 135 percent export tax on fertilizer
• The Indian government will dole out more on fertilizer subsidies in 2008 than it spends on its military