We recently published a list of 14 Best Farmland and Agriculture Stocks to Buy Now. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR) stands against other best farmland and agriculture stocks to buy now.

The American Agriculture Sector and Trump’s Tariffs

At the beginning of March, the White House announced the imposition of 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada and additional 10% tariffs on China. While President Trump granted a one-month tariff delay for automakers and paused the same for certain Mexican and Canadian goods until April 2, he announced in an interview with Fox News that tariffs “could go up” with time.

Since tariffs on Chinese goods weren’t a part of the exemptions, China imposed retaliatory tariffs on the US, particularly targeting US agricultural goods. Specifically, a 10% tariff was imposed on American soybeans, while corn was hit with an additional 15% charge. CNBC reported that China is prepared to fight “any type of war” with the United States. The news channel reported that the Chinese Embassy in the US reported in a post on X:

“If war is what the U.S. wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war, or any other type of war, we’re ready to fight till the end.”

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson also labeled the American fentanyl-related explanation for imposing tariffs a “flimsy excuse.”

READ ALSO: 10 Best Consumer Staples Stocks to Buy According to Analysts and 10 Best Mid Cap Biotech Stocks to Buy.

Could Tariffs Reduce Agriculture Goods Prices for Americans?

On March 4, Landus Cooperative CEO, Matt Carstens, appeared on CNBC’s ‘The Exchange’ to talk about how tariffs could potentially slash the prices of various agricultural products and discuss the long-term benefits of these tariffs on agricultural markets. He said that a significant need to find markets exists for American farmers. Corn makes up about 20% of any given year that the US exports to other countries, while soybean reaches up to as much as 50% of America’s production going to other markets. This creates an interesting dynamic that puts considerable pressure on the ongoing circumstances.

Carstens was of the view that the American farmers hopefully understand that the government is playing the long game here and working on something that would hopefully be significantly profitable for America in the long run. That translates to opportunities for farmers to get the most for commodities, something that they need to a great extent at the present. However, in the short term, we have to deal with these changes in the market.

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In other words, Carstens said that the scenario could benefit consumers because the US is flooded with the said agricultural product. Since it is comparatively more expensive to export these products, American consumers get cheaper soybeans and corn, but the farmers potentially lose their export business. There is, thus, a balance that comes into play. The market will certainly see price decreases as export slows and supply increases. However, the farmers are dealing with prices that continue to escalate amid other costs.

Our Methodology

We sifted through stock screeners, financial media reports, and ETFs to compile a list of 30 farmland and agriculture stocks and chose the top 14 most popular stocks among hedge funds. The list is ordered in ascending order of the number of hedge funds as of fiscal Q4 2024. We sourced the hedge fund sentiment data from Insider Monkey’s database.

Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).Is Nutrien Ltd. (NTR) the Undervalued Canadian Stock to Buy Now?

A close-up of a farmer's hands sowing a field of organic grains with crop inputs.

Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 32

Based in Canada, Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR) provides crop inputs and services. It operates a distribution, production, and agriculture retail facility network to support growers. Its operations are divided into the following segments: Nutrien Ag Solutions (Retail), Potash, Nitrogen, and Phosphate. Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR) manages retail operations in seven countries across three continents. Its agriculture retail network services more than 500,000 grower accounts worldwide.

The company reported an adjusted EBITDA of $5.4 billion for 2024 and underwent a 16% growth in retail adjusted EBITDA. This improvement was attributed to stronger-than-expected crop protection margins in North America.

Barclays analyst Benjamin Theurer raised the firm’s price target on Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR) to $59 from $56 on March 5, keeping an Equal Weight rating on the shares. The analyst told investors in a research note that crop prices and agriculture input pricing experienced a volatile start in March, with uncertainty rising for US farmers amid tariff concerns and disputes. Analysts are, however, bullish on Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR), and the stock’s median price target of $47.40 implies an upside of 26.58% from current levels.

Overall, NTR ranks 10th on our list of best farmland and agriculture stocks to buy now. While we acknowledge the potential for NTR as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%.  If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than NTR but  trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires.

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.

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