Yes.
First I would like to point out that in many ways Mr. Mann's comments meet my perspective out there, because we operate on a similar ground floor. It's very important that we realize that when we're discussing this we're not engaging in some type of an artificial engagement and topic in a way that is not possible. So I hope we all come across here and participate in the discussion that is today's reality.
Today's reality is not that small operators can enter the field. What we let happen in the past few years is very simple: a dramatic concentration process. If people were sleeping through that process, welcome to today's reality. The fact is that the concentration process has now brought us here where jurisdictional and regional governments are not able to make much of an impact any more on some of those things.
We deal with global entities, and they apply globalization and global capital. JPMorgan came out a few weeks ago and made a shareholders recommendation globally on Saskatchewan potash. If anybody watched Saskatchewan potash shares go from where they were to the $200-some range after that recommendation, the fact is somebody has to pay for that equity appreciation. In this case it's the people buying the potash.
Potash is probably one of the worst examples. I need to say that at the common level, for some of us to make certain comments, we operate with those entities, so when we use names and what not, we want to say it's to try to make a situation better. We're not on a witch hunt, or whatever we're trying to do.
But on potash, that's probably the saddest thing out there. For 10 to 20 years, potash traded at $150 or $180 a tonne. All of a sudden there's a concentration there. One of the major multinationals bought IMC. Now it's Mosaic, and all of a sudden potash is $400. There isn't that much more expense being incurred to harvest and mine that potash, but one of the crassest examples we see out there is with potash.
With nitrogen we have a different scenario, because natural gas is in abundant supply, unless you talk about offshore factories coming in. The issue there is about shipping and quality control in the shipping process. So we may need to differentiate between increasing production in a different type of nutrient engagement between potash, phosphorous, and nitrogen. It's an issue of transportation and how well those goods can be transported.