“…Our modern food system is based on a foundation of natural gas, and now that foundation is cracking. It’s becoming clearer as the war drags on that the world is bound to face a historic global fertiliser shortage. With the Strait of Hormuz restricted by the Iranian military, shipments of critical agricultural chemicals have effectively stopped.
The result is a cascading failure across the global supply chain. This bottleneck is pushing food prices toward record highs not seen since the 1970s energy crisis, threatening millions of people with severe food insecurity.
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Chris Abbott, chief executive of agricultural product maker Pivot Bio, told the New York Times that this crisis is striking at the worst possible moment. “This is hitting at an already difficult time,” he said, noting that the ratio of fertilizer costs to grain prices sits at a level unseen in generations.
Even before the bombs started falling, American farmers were bleeding cash. Agricultural bankruptcies surged by 46% in 2025. Before the recent price shocks, soybean farmers were already facing losses of $138 per acre, and corn farmers were losing $230 per acre.
Now, with input costs skyrocketing, farmers face an impossible choice: plant at a massive loss, switch to less nutrient-intensive crops, or plant nothing at all…”