Behind the missile exchanges over the Strait of Hormuz and the Black Sea, a slower catastrophe is gathering—one that will be measured not in drone attacks but in empty plates. The two wars are strangling the inputs on which the world’s food supply depends: energy, fertilizer, and grain itself.
Start with fertilizer. The Middle East supplies roughly one-third of the world’s urea exports; since the effective closure of Hormuz at the end of February, some 3.9 million tons—about 30% of the Gulf states’ annual fertilizer exports—have been suspended, and urea prices roughly doubled in a matter of weeks, the International Food Policy Research Institute reports. Saudi Arabia alone accounts for a fifth of world phosphate; 40-45% of the sulphur used to make it comes from the same war zone. Restarting a shuttered fertilizer plant takes five to eight weeks. With structural damage, it could take years. Even if both wars stopped tomorrow, IFPRI warns, fertilizer markets might not return to normal before 2028.
Now the grain. Russia supplies a quarter of the world’s wheat exports; Ukrainian strikes on the Azov Sea corridor have forced Moscow to suspend shipping on the route that carries much of that harvest to market. And with fertilizer costs soaring, the world’s growers face what IFPRI calls an “affordability crisis.” Brazil, 40% dependent on fertilizer routed through Hormuz, saw local prices jump 35% in two weeks. East African farmers, a third of whose fertilizer comes from the Gulf, have the least cushion of all.