Welcome to The Mosaic Company fiscal 2008 fourth quarter earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions) Your host for today's call is Christine Battist, Director of Investor Relations, of the Mosaic Company.

Joining us for the call this morning are Jim Prokopanko, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Dr. Mike Rahm, Vice President, Market Analysis and Strategic Planning, and other members of the Mosaic senior leadership team. We will be using presentation slides during the conference call today. You may view the slides simultaneously with the audio webcast. The slides are available on our website, www.mosaicco.com/investors and they enhance our discussion but are not a requirement for the call. If you are unable to download the slides, please contact me after the call and I'll send the slides to you. We will be making forward-looking statements during the call. The statements include, but are not limited to, statements about future financial and operating results. They are based upon management's beliefs and expectations as of today's date, October 2, 2008, and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements is included in our press release issued yesterday and in our reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This call is the property of Mosaic. Any distribution, transmission, broadcast, or rebroadcast in any form without the expressed written consent of Mosaic is prohibited. Now, I'll turn the call over to Jim who will recap some of the highlights from our first quarter results. Then Mike Rahm will share some insights on the agricultural sector and outlook, and finally Jim will share some updates to our financial guidance and comments on our cash position.

Unquestionably we are facing historic events in both the financial and commodity markets, with much yet to be sorted out. Against this volatile backdrop we began Mosaic’s fiscal 2009 year by delivering another quarter of record performance with quarterly earnings nearly four times the prior year. We continue to believe that we are well positioned financially, strategically, and operationally, to serve our customers worldwide and execute on the strong, long-term fundamentals of the agricultural sector. I will begin by highlighting a few financial metrics related to our first quarter results, as summarized on Slide 4. Our results were driven by higher selling prices due to strong customer demand, underpinned with strong agricultural fundamentals, and our ability to operate our mines, plants, and supply chains effectively. These factors more than offset higher sulfur and ammonia costs, higher Canadian resource taxes and royalties, and mark-to-market derivative losses. Net earnings for the quarter were $1.2 billion, or $2.65 per diluted share, or nearly four times the first quarter earnings of fiscal 2008. Gross margins improved 12% to 38% compared to a year ago at 26%. These results included net unrealized mark-to-market derivative losses of $115.0 million, or $0.18 per share, and a foreign currency transaction gain of $87.0 million, or $0.13 per share. Our Potash segment delivered a strong quarterly quarter, primarily driven by higher selling prices. Operating earnings were $478.0 million, quadruple the same period last year. Potash price increases more than offset higher resource taxes and royalties and unrealized mark-to-market derivative losses such that gross margin grew to 52% versus 31% last year. Our Phosphate segment posted another outstanding quarter despite higher raw material costs and lower than expected selling prices. Phosphates posted operating earnings of $951.0 million, or triple the operating earnings for the same period last year. Gross margins…

A number of factors, ranging from the current turmoil in the financial markets to uncertainties caused by government policies, have clouded our crystal ball. But as we peer through the fog, we continue to see a very positive outlook for agriculture and for our two core businesses. Let’s begin with agriculture. Agricultural fundamentals still look rock-solid to us. Farmers have responded to record high agricultural commodity prices by growing bin-busting crops during the last two years. Slide 5 shows that global grain and oilseed production has increased more than 200 million tonnes during the last two years. That is an outstanding supply response, yet Slide 6 shows that back-to-back record harvests have barely moved the needle measuring overall grain and oilseed stocks. We can see from the cross-hatch bar that inventories now are projected to increase 23 million tonnes and stocks as a percentage of use is forecasted to inch up just slightly. The record crop this year has calmed agricultural commodity markets following the near-panic attack earlier this summer when heavy rains and flooding delayed planning and damaged crops in many parts of the U.S. Corn Belt. However, our analysis indicates that another bumper crop is required next year to meet the demands for food and fuel, as well as to build stocks to more secure levels. That means farmers will need to plant more area and intensify cropping processes in order to increase yields. The three bars on the right of this chart illustrate the potential outcomes for low, medium, and high production and use scenarios in 2009. We draw three conclusions from this analysis. First, trend-line yields next year are not good enough to meet projected demand, let along build stocks to more secure levels. In fact, under the medium-term scenario global grain and oilseed stocks decline…

I would like to reiterate a few points that Mike just made. First, swings in pipeline stocks should not be confused with changes in use. The fundamentals of our core businesses, beginning with the basic need to plant more acres and grow higher yielding crops, remain positive. Record demand continues to fuel both the potash and phosphate markets, but we are taking the decisive steps necessary to work through the temporary slowdown in the movement of phosphates through the distribution pipeline. I would like now to shift to our financial guidance, as summarized on Slide 20. Due to the near-term factors we have outlined, phosphate sales volume guidance for fiscal 2009 is being reduced modestly to a range of 8 million to 9 million tonnes. We expect the majority of the reduction in sales tonnes will occur in the second fiscal quarter. Mosaic’s realized DAP price FOB plant for the second quarter of fiscal 2009 is estimated to be $1,010 to $1,080 per metric tonne, slightly higher than Q1 levels. Potash sales volume guidance for fiscal 2009 remains unchanged at 8.2 million to 8.6 million tonnes. We are producing all we can, as fast as we can, and we wish we had more inventories at hand to satisfy customer demand. Mosaic’s second quarter fiscal 2009 average realized MOP price FOB plant is estimated to be $560 per tonne to $620 per tonne. We are tempering our second-quarter outlook for phosphate volumes, though our full-year results should still be outstanding by any measure, including the generation of substantial cash flow. Now let me comment briefly on Mosaic’s cash position. As all of you are keenly aware, we are experiencing tumultuous events in the financial markets. Clearly, liquidity is king right now and our strong focus on building cash and a fortress…

(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Edlain Rodriguez - Goldman Sachs.

Jim, quick question for you. What gives you confidence that DAP prices will remain at those levels, despite the decline in the one or two years?

What I would suggest is the focus needs to be on margins, not on sales price. And that’s what’s driving our bottom line, is the very strong margins we’re seeing. So although we may miss, and could possibly be wrong, with what our sales forecast is, we’re comfortable and confident in our margins, that we see input costs go down, the drives that reduce sales price, we still see good margins in this business.

In the factors that you cite and Mike cite, some of them that result in the softness in phosphates right now, which ones are more concerning to you, which you think of these are likely to persist for a while and which ones do you think is just a temporary blip?

What is the most concerning? Well, we’ve got to watch what is happening with grain prices and returns to farmers, and that’s going to drive final use numbers. Less concerning, but very real, is the bulge in the pipeline stocks, and we see this as a bulge in the pipeline, not a reflection of actual farmer use.

Your next question comes from Donald Carson - Merrill Lynch.

Jim, on margins, which you rightly noticed the focus here, your call on sulfur was pretty good, because it has come crashing down, at least internationally, what kind of a lag do you see, though, for sulfur pricing coming down in the U.S., given that there is still some tightness post all the refinery outages? And then a couple of questions for Mike Rahm. One, if fall fertilizer applications fall a little short because of a compressed season, can you make that up in the spring? And then secondly, in terms of, you gave us your acreage outlook for corn and soy, you know, corn margins are still above soy but in a world of constrained credit, soy takes a lot less working capital. I’m just wondering what impact that might have on the acreage balance next spring?

On the sulfur prices, we have quarterly contracts, as you know. We have just concluded our third calendar quarter, July, August, September. We are negotiating with sulfur producers, they have not been prepared to capitulate on the price but the world prices that we’re seeing reported to be down as low as $400 and some unreported but stories of $200 sulfur prices being posted. We expect that that will start hitting our production facilities over the next three months, [ac novem dies] when we conclude our fourth quarter calendar contract. So it’s around the corner for us.

So you don’t expect any lag to that international fall then?

There will be a lag in terms of our inventories. We do have product purchased at the higher prices so it will get blended in, a little slower going down, just as it’s slow going up, to get the full negative impact. But we see, over the next few months that we will be getting much lower sulfur prices.

And just to be clear, we would expect higher cost per tonne in our second fiscal quarter because of this lag effect that Jim cites, before what could be a very significant decline in cost per tonne in the third and fourth quarters of the year.

In terms of your two questions, we expect a good fall season, assuming the weather cooperates. Farmers are taking a big crop off, we think they are in a very good financial position, strong balance sheets. We have not picked up wide-spread stories about serious credit constraints, so I think we are poised for a very good fall season. And as you say, if the crop is two to three weeks late, that could be the only fly in the ointment there. If the fall turns out to be disappointing, can we make it up in the spring? I think, although our supply chain will probably cringe, I think the answer to that is clearly yes. We have had a couple of analog years in the past where fall shipments, for whatever reason, have been down, there have been huge shipments requirements during the spring season, and despite a lot of grinding and gnashing of teeth, a product has been delivered to people in time for the spring application season. The second question on soybean acres and working capital and how that might impact soybean versus corn, that’s a very good question. Again, I would go back to what we said earlier, that we are not picking up a lot of issues with respect to credit at this point, in the country side. I agree with your assessment that corn prices I think may have to move up to pull in the acres that we think need to be planted to keep that S&D in balance. So as I said in the remarks, we fully expect that there will be another battle for acres once the harvest is in and once these crops start competing for what we think is the area they need for next year.

Your next question comes from Michael Judd - Greenwich Consultants.

Your [Tapp] plant, can you talk a little bit about the impacts of that, I believe it was out for part of the quarter. And is it back up or is that part of the plan to keep that down so that would be an area where you wouldn’t produce as much DAP?

No, we haven’t addressed that question. You said [Tapp], you are referring to our Uncle Sam and Fostina plants in Louisiana. Yes, they suffered some damage, mostly wind damage. Thankfully not water damage in the Hurricane Gustaf. We have been down and probably will be down now for about a month. We are getting the plant back up and in production and it’s not a plant that, it probably was out approximately 30 days, back running now. And with its capacity to produce phosphate and load it on the river, that’s a plant we’re going to keep running. I think it will answer a question that you may have implied in there is how are we going to take out the 500,000 to 1 million tonnes. What we plan to do is just feather back production at our Florida facilities and I don’t see taking a curtailment of any plant, but just take the foot off the accelerator a little bit.

For those of us who aren’t farmers, I certainly can appreciate that they’re having a good crop and their balance sheets are going to look pretty good, but don’t farmers basically have to borrow a lot of money in order to basically finance the purchase of a lot of raw materials, including fertilizers? I’m just trying to understand how that works out for your average farmer. Can you kind of walk me through that?

Well, Mike quoted a number, I think it was 2007, their crop year, we’re estimating farms to have a net farm cash income of $101.0 billion. That is the third consecutive outstanding year they’re having. I think two years ago they had a good year and it was about a $60.0 billion net farm cash income. Farmers have got good balance sheets, good farmers have cash on hand, and yes, they may have to get some financing, but that’s a solid place for banks to be investing. Good security on the farm. And we’re sensitive to it, but we are not seeing, at this point, farmers being stressed for capital to plant their upcoming crop.

Your next question comes from Neal Wolin for Mark Connelly - Credit Suisse.

I had a question about inventory levels in Brazil. Obviously that’s one of the key issues here. Is there any specific area where you are seeing inventory build? Is it sitting at the ports? Is it at distributors? Is it already at the farm just waiting to be used? Could you give some color on that?

Inventory levels are high in Brazil and our assessment is it’s pretty much throughout the distribution pipeline. As you know, we are approaching peak application season there and our expectation there is that those will get pulled down. To give you some numbers, through August, shipments to farms in Brazil were up about 10%. I think at the end of July they were up almost 19%. So August and the expectation for when the numbers for September come in is that shipments to farmers have slowed down, as they have bought early. We expect that [ac novem dies] will be respectable month and that by the end of the year, when all the tonnes are counted, Brazilian fertilizer use will probably be equal to last year, which was 24.6 million tonnes of use, to maybe even up a couple of percentage points, depending on how things play out between now and the end of the calendar year. So, yes, pipelines generally are well-stocked, prior to the start of the season. And that’s what we’re seeing in Brazil. And we saw a lot of product get placed early and things are slowing down now in terms of movement to the farm. We expect them to pick up in the fourth calendar quarter.

We’re hearing in regions like Montegrosso that they are actually giving a drop in prices, that farmers may be underwater to a certain degree. What is your sense of the farmers down in Brazil able to fund their purchases of fertilizers? Are they going to cut back? Will this necessarily mean that it will take longer to draw down the inventory in Brazil?

That’s a good question. A couple of points. Two things in play. We have seen the real weaken and that has given us a boost to the export-oriented agricultural sector there, and in fact, the depreciation of the real has to some extent made up for much of the recent decline in soybean prices. So I think you have to keep that in mind. Think in terms of reals per bag or reals per bushel as opposed to dollars per bushel. And in our assessment, from the team down there, is that generally we think overall planted area is going to be up a little bit. How intense they are in terms of applying inputs is more uncertain. We think there may be less intensity than we’ve in the past but we think acreage or area will be up.

Your next question comes from David Silver - JP Morgan.

I wanted to ask you about your industrial potash business. So that’s an area where Mosaic, I believe, has a leading market position. You key competitor, I think, is suffering either official force majeure or unofficial force majeure. Does that present any opportunities for you or is that business that because you are a little bit short on inventories heading into this year, that that business is fundamentally just going unmet? Can you talk about the opportunity that you have there from some unmet demand on the industrial potash side?

You picked up on an important point and particularly if you are the industrial customer that relies on the various products that come from potassium chloride, potassium hydroxide, and so on, food preservatives are a big user of it, plastic packaging goods. And yes, one of the major producers is, with their supply problems, some industrial accounts have had force majeure declared on them and they have called us. We have not been able to find the extra production or the inventory to serve them. So that’s not something we can step in and fill. Our industrial potash production is fully committed. Every tonne that we are pulling out of the ground and producing has got a designated customer on it. So simple answer, no, we can’t fill some of the unmet needs right now. But all of our customers are being taken care of.

Jim, or maybe Mike, I would like you to maybe comment, this is going to be a question of how we should think about the DAP market here versus the potash market. So in other words, when I think of the change in supply capability for DAP and potash year-over-year, I think it’s about the same, couple of percent up, when I think of the demand profile, corn, wheat, soy, cotton, etc. I also think that the ultimate end market demand profile for P versus K is pretty similar. However, here through the end of the summer we have had a very different pricing action between potash, which seems to be stable to higher, and DAP, which seems to be weaker. Can you talk about, from your perspective as kind of a member of both of the export marketing agencies for potash and phosphate, can you talk about what you think the key differences are that have led to this difference in recent price performance? Is it the distribution channel? Is it the size and the shape of your different customers? Is it long supply chain? What kind of gives the potash market that firmness here that seems to have eluded the DAP market?

Let me give an answer and, Mike, if I miss something you can just add to it. I think what has occurred this last couple of quarters is that we have seen the rise in phosphate prices precede the increase in potash. And so over the last couple of quarters, with rapidly escalating phosphate prices, dealers, distributors, retailers, have been eager and motivated to get the phosphate product into the warehouses before they saw further price increases. So what we see now is this bulge in the pipeline. They filled up, anticipating just for their price increases. Potash was later to start seeing escalating prices. We had a reduction in China last year of potash demand. So it was just a little later that potash started facing growing, strong global demand. Phosphate space and dealers and warehouses are full, they can’t really take much more. There is view now, and I think a correct view that I subscribe to, that potash demand is going to come back, particularly with the Chinese having to restock their pipeline, which is contrary to what we’re seeing in North America, very low, particularly in potash. So the Chinese have to come back and start buying product and so the anticipation is with them having to buy as much as 50% more than they did last year, it’s potash’s turn to sort of be out of balance in terms of supply and demand.

That’s a great question. And I think the answer is that we don’t necessarily see as many differences as what might appear today. I think if you think of our business as, let’s say, a long distribution pipeline or supply chain, at one end you have farmers who are using the product about two days out of the year. There’s either a spring application or a fall application. At the other end of the pipeline you have mines and processing plants that are operating 24/7/365 and throughout the course of the year you have a flow of product moving through that very long and very large pipeline. There aren’t all that many sources of supply in terms of where these minerals are found and as a result we sell product to farmers in every corner of the globe. So that the pipeline is long and given the differences in how we produce it and how farmers use it, it has to necessarily be a very long pipeline. As I said in the comments, the swings in the pipeline are not unique to phosphate. We have short memories. Go back about two and a half years, the first half of 2006, we were in the same boat with potash. The inventories had built sharply in North America, the Chinese and Indians were in a protracted negotiation with suppliers, and we were scaling back our potash mines because the system was plugged. And so think of it in terms of our production facilities in phosphate have about three weeks of production space. So we have to continually move product through that pipeline. And when we say we believe the fundamentals are good for both of these nutrients, that sort of relates to what’s coming out at the end of the pipeline and…

Your next question comes from Mark Gulley - Soleil-Gulley & Associates. Mark Gulley - Soleil-Gulley & Associates : In the real world, farmers, it sounds like dealers are going to have to take LIFO charges with given the fact that they have purchased product on the DAP side at much higher prices and are going to be pressured by their customers to perhaps sell at lower prices. So are LIFO charges going to be a problem for your customers, the dealers? And what about LIFO charges for Mosaic, given how you account for these things?

Dealers have been buying over the last three to four months, that’s what is in their warehouses. And there are some very handsome prices they have in those warehouses and by that I mean low prices, so I think the dealers are going to do just fine when you look at their average, blended fertilizer prices. So the bottom line, I don’t see this at all as an issue for the retailer and dealer.

It’s not a concern for us at this point with our inventories. There is still a very healthy margin between the average cost of the product and inventory and current selling prices. As we indicated earlier, we would expect that the cost of product to be coming down over the coming months, over the next three to six months. So we don’t think this is an issue for us. Mark Gulley - Soleil-Gulley & Associates : And Mike, you talked about the optimism that farmers feel based upon the 2008 harvest and I appreciate that, but I can’t think that they’re that optimistic about the price/cost squeeze facing them for 2009. Those crop prices ease, as your graph shows, and these costs are rising, do you think you’re going to see a lot of sitting on hands by farmers and/or demands for lower prices and they try to confront a price/cost squeeze for next year?

Actually, when you look at the 2009 farm economics they, if you plug in 2009 new crop prices versus current spot prices for crop nutrients, expected prices for seed corn, diesel, and so forth, those economics are not a heck of a lot different than the 2008 economics. Assuming that a producer sold the crop at these new crop prices less a basis. So our assessment of farm economics still remains very positive.

Your next question comes from Brian Yu- Citigroup.

Jim, taking what we’ve learned from the current destocking phase in the phosphate market, does this alter your approach to selling product in the future or your restock plans at [South Pierce]?

To your first question, does it change our approach? Well, we had some advice from analysts and investors that when the prices were going up we should be more spot-oriented and I don’t know if you are suggesting that we should be longer-pricing now, but no, we haven’t changed our pricing. We are being thoughtful about when we price and how far out we go. It’s a long supply chain, you’ve heard that from us a number of times, so there is just the logistics and the physics of it all, you have to price out six to eight to ten weeks out. So we’re not really changing that. We’re being cautious in terms of our potash pricing beyond our November time. We’ve got programs out and have made our, call it the fall sale program has been done. So we’re being cautious going out much beyond the next eight weeks. And so the [South Peirce] question next is something that is going to be caught up in this reduction of our phosphate production and we will put that on indefinite hold. And we’re partially down that road but in terms of the capital spending, nothing really material on that, so that won’t be coming on line until we see this bulge in the pipeline being reduced.

My questions wasn’t so much with pricing, but just more of how your approach to shipping product, you have a pretty good sense of what demand is going to look like, and given your leadership role in the industry, is there any way for you to control the outbound flow of product so that you don’t end up over-supplying the chain?

What I hear you asking is should we take a management approach in what’s in the pipeline. We’ve got a production engine that produces in the range of 800,000 tonnes a month and we’ve got about three weeks of storage capacity. So we’re going to move it as the various markets in the world need it and as we produce it. So there’s not a lot of room to control that throttle.

You commented earlier that with the phosphate business it’s more about margins rather than pricing so taking a look at margins in phosphates, Mosaic generated $517 per tonne of product sold in the phosphate business, excluding very smart market adjustments. What type of margins do you think Mosaic needs to get for its products to fully value the resources going forward? Is it in the $500 per tonne area? Is that the type of margins you see yourself trying to defend?

The margins that we are currently generating, that we generated in this past quarter, are at historically high levels, at very attractive levels. As we indicated earlier, because of the lagging effect of rising sulfur and ammonia costs before we start to see the downturn we think that that margin will likely decline in the second quarter. We do believe, however, we will see very healthy margins and recovering margins in the second half of the year and I would emphasize again that the margins that we are currently seeing, that we expect to see, are high by any historic measure for the phosphate industry.

Your next question comes from Vincent Andrews – Morgan Stanley.

You mentioned earlier that there were some analog years where you were able to make up for the fall and the spring. Could you just provide us with what those years were?

I think that the best year was 2006 or 2007 where you looked at the total shipments of all fertilizer products. And I’m talking primarily about solid fertilizer products. So we looked at DAP, MAP, potash and you compared it to shipments during the previous five years, they were off dramatically. I think it was the fall of 2006. That was the year where I think we had 93 million acres of corn, so there were big demand requirements next spring, and yet we ended the first half of the fertilizer year with shipments below normal for, I think, virtually all those products. And there was a huge shipping requirement for the spring of 2007, I believe it was. And I think we had some help from weather. I think there was a pretty orderly break to the season and in the end, after lots of concerns about people not getting product, and I think there were a few scattered outages here and there, but by and large the supply chain was able to produce or deliver the tonnes that were needed. So the best analog year, I think is 2006/2007. We can go back and take a look at those numbers if you would like to follow up with that.

Could you talk about how you came to the production cut volume numbers and how you see kind of the delta between one or the other and why you think that the high end is the max you will have to do?

We did our forecast of global demand by geography, by customer, worked it up from what our sales force in the country anticipate for customer requirements and backed it into our production schedule and our judgment is something in that range, given all we know today and grain prices that we’re facing, this is our best judgment of what will balance out the supply and demand chain.

What price of corn were you assuming in that analysis?

The kind of values that we’re seeing today, this week, we’ve seen a bit of weakening in the commodity markets, the grain and oilseed markets the last couple of weeks, and just sort of projecting that in that range.

Some key assumptions there, we’ve mentioned before domestic DAP MAP shipments dropping from 7.8 to 7.1 or 7.2. We expect Chinese exports in 2009 to DAP and MAP to remain in that 2.5 million tonne range. We expect a rebound in Brazilian imports, I think we mentioned a 9% climb. So there are a number of assumptions that go into that and those are our best estimates, guesses, at this point.

What do you assume for the Chinese export tariff?

That’s a difficult call. You saw from the chart that Chinese exports have really tailed off. I wish we knew. I’m not sure the Chinese officials are agreed upon what they intend to do.

Let’s assume that the tariff goes away, what would that mean to your production forecast, do you think?

That’s hard to say. It’s difficult to speculate on that. As we’ve said all along, China is a big swing factor.

And if we think about the non-integrated phosphate producer now, how should we think about the break-even cost of production there and how are you thinking about what their production plans might be? I mean obviously you think the raw material costs are going to come down.

Right now I think for fourth quarter acid prices in India, they were settled at 19 and 20 roughly, given the spot prices of ammonia. We think the cost of those raw materials delivered per tonne of DAP is about $1,085. So they have reflected those differences. When you look at Indian DAP production we think it’s going to be below 4 million tonnes, 3.7 million tonnes, down dramatically from what we’ve seen in the past. So India is importing more DAP and less raw materials and intermediate products to product DAP.

How are you thinking about the seller of rocks to the non-integrated producer? How do you forecast the risk or think about the risk that there would be a price cut in rock for the non-integrated producer?

We need to wrap up the call so you can take this off line.

Your next question comes from Steve Burn – Merrill Lynch. Steve Burn – Merrill Lynch: Were there any unusual costs in the fiscal first quarter in either business? It looks like unit costs, backing out provincial taxes on potash and backing out the sulfur and ammonia costs on phosphates just appeared higher than they have been in the last few quarters. Was there anything unusual?

The mark-to-market charges. Steve Burn – Merrill Lynch: I backed that out, too.

The other issue would be volume just being generally lighter and so on, absorbed overhead was an issue in the quarter. Otherwise there was nothing of any significance that stands out. We re-estimated reclamation costs, that was a minor bit in the phosphate business but nothing else that was particularly noteworthy.

That concludes our formal comments of the call today and we will be happy to take your questions back at the office.