The truce in the Middle East does not solve the fertilizer crisis. Tons less products and skyrocketing prices put the agricultural sector at risk.
Truce or no truce, the agricultural sector will have to deal with the serious fertilizer crisis. While the situation in the Middle East remains highly volatile, the Strait of Hormuz still remains a “restricted traffic zone”.
The cessation of hostilities alone, however, will not be enough to avoid the food risks linked to fertilizer shortages.
Traffic still stopped
Data in hand, the picture emerging from the Strait of Hormuz is more serious than the official press releases suggest. On the first day of the truce, ship transits are still limited and all subject to Tehran’s approval.
The problem is that from that 54 kilometer corridor a huge share of global fertilizer trade passes through. About the 33% of the world’s fertilizersincluding sulfur and ammonia, passes through the Strait of Hormuz.
If we restrict the analysis to urea alone, the most widespread and marketed nitrogenous product in the world, the concentration is even more marked: the Strait supports 35% of global urea exports.
Perfect storm
The timing of this profound crisis could not be worse. Spring is planting season in the Northern Hemisphere, and fertilizers should be applied before crops begin to grow: any supply arriving late could not be used for the 2026 harvest.
The window is closing, and the market was already experiencing tensions before the outbreak of the conflict: in 2025 fertilizer prices had already increased by 18%, remaining above pre-pandemic levels.
The addition of Hormuz’s shock did the rest. The Fertilizer Institute estimates that American farmers will be short about 2 million tons of urea this spring.
Problems for Italy too
But the problem also affects Europe and Italy directly. Europe imports about 11% of the total urea it uses from the Persian Gulf: a share which, under normal conditions, would be manageable, but which becomes a critical point precisely when the global market is under pressure and alternatives are scarce.
In June 2025, the European Union had imposed new duties on the import of fertilizers from Russia and Belarus and, consequently, in search of new producing areas, it looked to the Middle East and Africa.
The result is that Italy finds itself exposed on multiple fronts at the same time. For a medium-sized Italian cereal company (for example with one hundred hectares of wheat, corn and soya) a 20-30% increase in the price of urea or ammonium nitrate translates into tens of thousands of euros of additional costs in a single season.
Risk of price increases
The price effects are already materializing. Urea rose from more than $450 per ton on February 27 to more than $700 by mid-March, an increase of about 50% in less than three weeks.
The FOB price of granular urea in Egypt, considered a benchmark for nitrogen fertilizers, has reached around $700 per metric ton, compared to $400-490 before the conflict began.
These increases in production factors will inevitably result in higher prices for food. Fertilizer accounts for about 20% of grain production costs, and reduced grain prices are among the most likely consequences of a contraction in fertilizer supply.
Goldman Sachs warns that Yield losses due to delayed or insufficient nitrogen application, combined with possible acreage shifts to less intensive crops, could push up grain prices globally.
The final bill, as always, will be paid by consumers, especially in the most vulnerable countries of South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, where dependence on fertilizers from the Gulf is greatest and the ability to absorb price increases is minimal.
