India's Hungry For Fertilizer

India's largest fertilizer cooperative will be flooded with phosphate according to Monday's deal with Australia's Legend International Holdings.

Legend International Holdings (otcbb: LGDI.OB - news - people ), which has access to one of the world's largest phosphate finds, entered a long-term offtake and supply agreement for a minimum of 3.0 million tons of concentrated rock phosphate. Legend and the IFFCO, which boasts an association of more than 50 million farmers, agreed to approach the project in a joint venture and were still discussing terms of the deal.

Shares of Legend, an agriculture resource development company, closed Monday's trading session ahead by 54 cents, or 13.8%, at $4.46 a share.

The price of phosphate rock was also still under discussion but Legend said it would "be negotiated on a fair and equitable basis for both companies based on international market prices applicable for the Indian market with an appropriate discount."

Negotiations were slated for completion in the next few months.

The IFFCO has five fertilizer plants in India and a domestic annual production capacity of 4.3 million tons of phosphatic fertilizers and 4.2 million tons of nitrogenous fertilizers.

Separately on Monday, the Asian Development Bank released a special report on food prices and inflation in developing Asia in which it recommends investments in agricultural inputs like fertilizer to help farmers boost their crop yields. The ADB met in Madrid on Monday to discuss possible solutions for rising food prices that are making it increasingly difficult to feed the world's poor.

Speaking at the event, ADB president, Haruhiko Kuroda, said: "The absence of such measures could seriously undermine the global fight against poverty and erode the gains of past decades."

With the global demand for food set to skyrocket in the near-term, farmers are lavishing crops with fertilizers and other crop technologies in hopes of turning impressive harvests. Fertilizer companies, in turn, saw higher raw material costs more than offset in the first quarter by customers' insatiable demand for their products (See: Bountiful Times For Fertilizer Sector).

Companies across the fertilizer and agricultural business sector traded broadly higher Monday. Bunge (nyse: BG - news - people ) shares gained $4.59, or 4.1%, to close at $115.91, Potash Corp (nyse: POT - news - people ).'s stock added $7.28, or 3.9%, at $193.89 a share and Terra Nitrogen (nyse: TNH - news - people ) closed Monday's trading session ahead by $6.55, or 4.5%, at $153.59.