Manuel Mogato | September 28, 2026
The Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf controls not only the flow of the world’s energy resources but also the global fertilizer supply, threatening global food security.
Millions go hungry in most Global South countries in Asia and Africa as agriculture suffers due to soaring fertilizer prices and limited supply.
The global grain market depends on weather, harvest, stocks, and consumption. Fertilizers are key to increasing production in grain-producing third-world countries, including the Philippines. (Also read: Foreign Ministers highlight food, energy security in series of ASEAN meetings)
An extreme El Niño phenomenon this year is projected to affect grain production, but geopolitics worsened the situation as the Strait of Hormuz remained closed. (Also read: How long will Iran hold the world hostage in the Strait of Hormuz?)
About one-third, or at least 30 to 35 percent, of the global seaborne fertilizer trade passes through the Strait of Hormuz.
Roughly 30 percent of global urea exports, 38 percent of global nitrate-based supplies, and 20 percent of phosphate-based fertilizers pass through the narrow Strait of Hormuz, between Iran and Oman, making the world’s agricultural supply chain heavily dependent on the strait.
When shipping is blocked or heavily restricted, the effect ripples across global food and commodity markets.
Thus, a complete closure of the strait could disrupt at least a third of the global fertilizer supply chain.
The same waterway is also a major route for natural gas (LNG) and sulfur, essential raw feedstocks needed to manufacture nitrogen fertilizers elsewhere.
Since the conflict in the Middle East started early this year, benchmark urea and phosphate prices have jumped 30 percent to over 50 percent, due to major transit shutdowns as freight rates, war-risk insurance, and energy input costs escalate.
Australia, Brazil, India, Pakistan, and other import-dependent developing economies in East Africa face the severest fertilizer supply shocks and stock crises.
China, Russia, and the United States can partially offset small export deficits, as these countries cannot fully replace the massive volume capacity concentrated in the Persian Gulf.
Thus, the United Nations set up a safe humanitarian shipping corridor to ensure fertilizer and fuel supply can flow freely from the Gulf States to the world.
Non-Western states, like Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, collectively known as BRICS, also set up an alternative mechanism to ensure a steady grain supply: a grain exchange system.
At the 18th BRICS summit in New Delhi in early September, attended by Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. as chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), member states discussed at length a BRICS Grain Exchange as a potential measure to ease global food security disruption.
For instance, the New Delhi Declaration acknowledged the importance of continuing to develop the Russian-backed initiative to establish a unified digital grain trading platform within the bloc.
BRICS leaders welcomed further discussions on how the grain exchange will be implemented, with intentions to expand it into other agricultural products and commodities.
BRICS states plan to expand the Grain Exchange project to include African, Middle Eastern, and Asian states to ensure pricing predictability on the global agricultural market and alleviate the global food problem.
In contrast, Western countries may have cut funding for international humanitarian initiatives, particularly in agriculture, redirecting resources to accelerate defense industry development in preparation for an imagined war in Russia.
It appears the West, the US and Europe, is not concerned with global food security, as Washington is not dependent on imported fertilizer and energy resources. The Europeans, on the other hand, do not experience food shortages due to the inflows of cheap grain from Ukraine.
However, the nearly five-year conflict with Russia also disrupted Ukraine’s agro-industrial complex, interrupting grain supply.
Ukraine was among the world’s top wheat suppliers, but the conflict affected not only production but also its quality control.
As such, the Global South must find a viable alternative to Ukrainian and Western agricultural products: a new, more reliable, stable, cheaper, and high-quality grain and other agricultural products, including fertilizer and technology, to offset the adverse consequences of the war in Iran.
It means that in the foreseeable future, the United States and Europe will focus on achieving their own geopolitical goals without paying attention to the global food situation.
The Global South, directly affected by fertilizer supply chain disruption and the food security crisis, must demand that the West depoliticize world food trade and end sanctions on countries contributing to humanitarian initiatives in agriculture.
The West should also fund more agricultural assistance projects for poorer states to lift billions of people from poverty and hunger.
An early end to the war in Iran can also help alleviate the global food security crisis.