A top World Trade Organization official has warned that disruptions to fertilizer supplies caused by the Middle East war pose a double threat to global food security through scarcity and high prices, as Iran has virtually shut the Strait of Hormuz, a vital transit route for oil, gas, and fertilizers.
A third of the world’s fertilizers normally transit the strait, and the disruption has prompted multiple warnings about the impact on food production.
“Fertilizers are the number one issue of concern today. If there is no more fertilizer, there is an impact on quantities but also on prices,” WTO Deputy Director General Jean-Marie Paugam said recently.
“The effect compounds the following year: harvests shrink and prices rise.”
The Gulf has ample supplies of natural gas, which is a key ingredient in chemical fertilizers, making the region a major manufacturer. Production has been severely impacted by the war, with some major facilities forced to shut down.
Major food exporters such as India, Thailand, and Brazil depend on the Gulf for urea, a nitrogen-based fertilizer, making them vulnerable.
There is currently no fertilizer shortage because the war is only a few weeks old. “But if fertilizers from the Gulf do not circulate, we will feel a direct impact on supplies to major producer countries just as planting seasons begin for the crops that will be harvested next year,” Paugam said.
Net food importing countries would be in a very bad position, and the effect can be amplified if countries start stockpiling, which happened during disruptions to international trade at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, which set back the fight against hunger worldwide.
As an agricultural country that is surprisingly a big importer of food, especially its staple food rice, the Philippines could be hit from multiple fronts by a significant disruption in fertilizer supply. That is a situation that our government has to prepare for, either by securing adequate stocks of fertilizer or the food that we usually import.
Let’s not wait for the full effects of such disruptions to be felt before taking action. Securing fertilizer and food supplies should’ve been a priority long ago. Acting now may be too late, but a government that simply gives up is worse.*
