Mosaic has announced plans to cut 199 jobs at its South Fort Meade phosphate mine in Polk County, with operations at the site set to wind down as early as December 8. The reductions, disclosed through an official notice sent to state authorities, represent the latest consequence of a worldwide sulfur shortage that has kept fertilizer producers under sustained pressure throughout the year.
A Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification letter bearing the signature of company vice president Ron Yasurek was submitted on October 5 and cleared the formal processing stage around the middle of that same month. Under federal WARN legislation, employers conducting mass layoffs are required to provide a minimum of 60 days' advance notice — a timeline that aligns with the December 8 effective date.
Sulfur — the raw material needed to process mined phosphate rock into phosphoric acid fertilizer — is in short supply worldwide, according to Mosaic. Conflict across the Middle East and disruptions to maritime routes have contributed to deepening the shortage, a news outlet reported.
Prices for sulfur — a material extracted as a refining byproduct from oil and gas operations — have moved well beyond their long-standing band of $100 to $300 per metric ton, reaching above $1,000 per ton during the current year, as bottlenecks along key maritime routes curtailed the flow of the commodity out of the Persian Gulf, according to the outlet. Roughly half of all sulfur moving by sea originates from producers across the Middle East, a supply concentration that leaves processing facilities as far away as Central Florida exposed to the ripple effects of distant regional instability.
Planned for more than six months, the South Fort Meade closure will keep a reduced crew on the ground to cover maintenance work, environmental obligations, and safety responsibilities while the operation waits for market conditions to improve enough to justify reopening. Before committing to any firm timeline for reopening, the company intends to explore other sources for its sulfur supply.
Hourly workers at the South Fort Meade facility fall under the representation of Local 814C, affiliated with the International Chemical Workers Union Council and the broader UFCW, and those union officials received advance notice before the workforce-reduction announcement was made. Under the labour agreement, workers facing displacement retain the contractual right to move into other roles at Mosaic, giving those affected a path to remain employed rather than losing their positions altogether.
Previous workforce reductions tied to sulfur supply constraints had already taken place before this latest round. Notices filed with regulators show that 206 positions at Mosaic's Uncle Sam and Faustina fertilizer plants were set to be eliminated by October 10, 2026, with the company pointing to the same worldwide supply pressures as a contributing factor. Among the industrial employers operating in Louisiana's St. James Parish, Mosaic ranks as one of the larger contributors to local workforce activity.
Prior to shutting down its South Fort Meade mine, Mosaic had withdrawn a 2026 global production target of 7 million metric tons and trimmed output by half at its Bartow, Florida plant and at its operations in Brazil — steps taken as part of an effort to lower sulfur consumption, according to a media report. Blended crop nutrient sales in Brazil account for a substantial share of Mosaic's international revenue, and the output reductions at those facilities are weighing on the company's overall performance.
Phosphate matrix extraction and processing at South Fort Meade, a Polk County operation dating to 1995, feeds into a Mosaic-owned rail spur stretching 4.4 miles before connecting to CSX lines that carry material onward to the company's chemical facilities in Bartow, Riverview, and New Wales — details drawn from filings the company submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Road transport of phosphate rock away from the facility via public highways is not permitted, a restriction that points to how deeply the operation is embedded within Mosaic's interconnected Central Florida production network.
Headquartered in Tampa, Mosaic operates as a producer of fertilizer products. Federal prosecutors opened an antitrust inquiry that March into pricing and supply arrangements at Mosaic, CF Industries, and Nutrien, three of the fertilizer industry's largest players, amid concerns about market concentration and the financial strain on farming operations.
Two questions remain unresolved heading into the next growing season: whether disruptions across global sulfur supply networks will ease enough to put the South Fort Meade operation back online by 2027, and what a thinning domestic fertilizer supply will mean for the prices American farmers pay when spring planting begins.
