There is a grim arithmetic quietly unfolding beneath the headlines of war and oil prices, one that rarely makes it into political speeches but will shape the lives of hundreds of millions: no fertilizer, no crops; no crops, no food. What we are witnessing is not merely a spike in agricultural inputs, but the early stages of a systemic shock to the global food chain, one that threatens to tip already fragile regions into famine.
The mechanism is deceptively indirect. Modern agriculture does not run on soil alone; it runs on nitrogen, phosphate, and potash — industrial inputs manufactured from natural gas, mined minerals, and globally distributed supply chains. Disrupt those flows, and the consequences are delayed but relentless. Fertilizer shortages do not empty shelves overnight. They show up months later as weaker crops, lower yields, and tightening food supplies. As analysts have noted, the lag is measured "in seasons rather than days," which means the real impact of today's disruption will not be fully felt until harvest cycles begin to fail.
The current crisis is tightly bound to geopolitics. The conflict in the Middle East, and particularly the disruption of the Strait of Hormuz, has choked one of the world's most critical arteries for both energy and fertilizer. Shipping through the strait has in some cases collapsed by over 95%, severing flows of ammonia, urea, and other essential nutrients. This matters because the Gulf region is not just another supplier; it is a central hub through which a large share of global fertilizer production and trade passes. Roughly a third of the world's fertilizer flows through this narrow corridor.
The result is a classic supply shock, but one with uniquely dangerous characteristics. Unlike oil, fertilizer markets lack strategic reserves and rapid substitution options. You cannot simply "switch" to another input when nitrogen prices double or shipments fail to arrive. Prices have already surged dramatically — urea alone has jumped by around 50% in a matter of weeks in early 2026 — and affordability has collapsed for many farmers. The predictable response is not innovation but retreat: farmers use less fertilizer, plant less land, or switch to lower-yield crops. Every one of those choices reduces future food supply.
This is where the crisis moves from economics into human consequence. Reduced fertilizer use does not affect all regions equally. Wealthy countries can absorb higher costs, draw on reserves, or subsidise farmers. Poorer nations cannot. The lesson from the 2022 fertilizer shock, triggered by the disruption of Russian and Belarusian exports, was clear: the sharpest declines in fertilizer use, and therefore yields, occurred in parts of Africa. The same pattern is now re-emerging, but on a potentially larger scale.
The early warning signs are already stark. Global reports indicate that hundreds of millions of people are experiencing acute food insecurity, with famine conditions reappearing in places like Sudan and Gaza. And crucially, analysts warn that fertilizer disruptions could push tens of millions more into hunger if the crisis persists. This is not speculative alarmism; it is the predictable downstream effect of constrained agricultural inputs in a world that has little buffer left.
What makes the situation especially dangerous is timing. The disruption has hit during key planting windows in both hemispheres. Farmers cannot simply delay sowing until prices fall or supply resumes. Decisions made now, how much fertilizer to apply, what crops to plant, lock in outcomes months ahead. Even if peace were declared tomorrow, the agricultural cycle cannot rewind. As one analysis notes, the shock "will reverberate for months to come" regardless of how quickly conflict subsides.
There is also a compounding effect. Fertilizer is inseparable from energy. Natural gas is a primary input for nitrogen fertilizers, and oil underpins transport and distribution. When energy prices rise, fertilizer becomes more expensive; when fertilizer becomes scarce, food production falls; when food production falls, prices rise further. It is a chain reaction linking geopolitics to the price of bread. In this sense, the fertilizer crisis is not a separate problem from the oil shock — it is its most dangerous amplification.
For countries like Australia, the threat is muted but still real: higher food prices, lower yields, and increased exposure to global volatility. But for import-dependent developing nations, the consequences are existential. Food systems already strained by debt, natural variability weather shocks, and political instability are now being hit by a fundamental input shortage. In such conditions, famine is not a dramatic sudden event; it is a slow collapse, visible first in rising prices, then in malnutrition, and finally in mortality.
The uncomfortable truth is that this crisis reveals how thin the margin of global food security has become. For decades, the world relied on a tightly optimised system of just-in-time inputs, cheap energy, and global trade flows. That system delivered abundance, but it also created fragility. A disruption in a single chokepoint, a single region, can now cascade across continents.
And that is the deeper warning embedded in the current fertilizer shock. It is not just about this year's harvest, or even next year's. It is about the structural dependence of modern civilisation on a handful of industrial inputs and trade routes. When those fail, the consequences are not confined to markets or balance sheets. They reach into the most basic human necessity, food, and remind us that beneath all our technological sophistication, the world still runs on soil, nutrients, and the fragile systems that connect them.
https://michaeltsnyder.substack.com/p/the-worst-fertilizer-crisis-in-the
"Food security in Africa could face major disruptions due to continuing uncertainty in the Strait of Hormuz.
The conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran is disrupting global fertiliser trade flows – and this stands to leave millions of African farmers without the ammonia, urea, phosphate, sulphur and other fertiliser inputs vital to growing more food in sub-Saharan Africa.
Fertiliser shipments passing through the Strait of Hormuz account, for example, for roughly one-quarter of global ammonia trade and more than a third of seaborne urea. Even the slightest perceived risk can drive up fertiliser prices, stall shipments and cause a seismic shift in food price inflation.
This food insecurity scenario is not new: COVID-19 pandemic disruptions and the war in Ukraine drove fertiliser prices to record highs, exposing how dependent we have become on a handful of export hubs and bottlenecked transport routes.
About 80 percent of fertiliser used across sub-Saharan Africa is imported, often at prices much higher than in Europe due to freight, financing and logistics. When global supply falters, Africa's farmers often feel the economic shocks the hardest. For many governments, fertiliser security is tied to food security, which, in turn, is linked to economic and social stability.
Africa's smallholder farmers are at the forefront of this crisis. They produce nearly 70 percent of sub-Saharan Africa's food, and unlike large commercial farms which have the cash to secure a supply earlier, smallholder farmers often have limited fertiliser options or face steep price hikes.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, even a 10 percent reduction in fertiliser availability could result in up to 25 percent less maize, rice and wheat grown in sub-Saharan Africa. This could trigger food inflation of up to 8 percent on the continent.
In 2022, the African Development Bank Group launched the $1.5bn African Emergency Food Production Facility to help countries respond to supply disruptions amid the war in Ukraine. The initiative has supported nearly 16 million smallholder farmers in 35 countries with climate-smart seeds and fertiliser, helping generate 46 million tonnes of food worth about $19bn, with nearly $323m in cofinancing from international partners.
Having delivered 3.5 million metric tonnes of fertiliser to date, the facility is rolling out a second phase that supports a shift from immediate emergency relief to consolidating, scaling up and institutionalising long-term national food sovereignty. This African-created solution has a role in helping African countries mitigate fertiliser flow uncertainty in the Strait of Hormuz.
But African policymakers, partners and allies also need to act to cushion the Iran conflict's immediate risks and build long-term resilience. They should move across five fronts."