Global chokepoint: How the US-Israeli war on Iran could starve millions
Posted on: Mar 15, 2026 10:48 IST | Posted by: Rt
The US-Israeli state of war on persia has closed fertiliser plants end-to-end the Gulf and choked off shipping routes. The longer it drags on, the greater the risk of a global food crisis.
For farmers in the northern hemisphere, the war has come at the worst possible time. The spring planting season has begun, and fertilizer is in high demand. While rising fuel costs are the most obvious consequence of the war to consumers, the price of fertilizer is also increasing, and supply of its ingredients is tightening.
The ongoing conflict affects every step of the fertilizer production chain. To understand how, it’s vital to first understand how modern fertilizer is made. In the most common process, natural gas is mixed with nitrogen to produce ammonia, which is then refined into urea, ammonium nitrate, and urea ammonium nitrate (UAN), all of which are considered nitrogen fertilizers.
While farmers also use phosphorus and potassium-based fertilizers, nitrogen fertilizers are the most common, accounting for 59% of global consumption. Without these fertilizers, roughly half of the world’s food supply would be wiped out.
With its abundant supplies of natural gas, the Gulf region is a key location for ammonia production. Global fertilizer production is dominated by China, the US, India, and Russia, but Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar are the ninth, tenth, and eleventh-largest producers, and around a third of the world’s nitrogen fertilizers pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
The strait has been de facto closed since early March, with four ships transiting the waterway on March 7, down from an average of 129 throughout February, according to UN figures.
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