When oil prices surge past $100 a barrel, most people think about what they will pay at the fuel pump. Farmers, however, know better.
For them, the real danger is not what happens at the petrol station — it is what happens in the months that follow, quietly, at the farm gate, when fertilizer invoices arrive and input costs have jumped by figures that no budget could have anticipated.
That moment has arrived. The Iran-US military conflict that erupted in late February 2026 and effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz has already sent oil prices soaring above $110 per barrel.
Urea prices — a critical nitrogen fertilizer — jumped from around $475 per ton to over $683 per ton at major import hubs within days of the conflict’s outbreak. For farmers already managing razor-thin margins, this is not just an inconvenience.
It is a crisis that will reshape planting decisions, input strategies, and farm profitability for the rest of the year.
If you run a farm — whether in East Africa, Europe, or North America — this article explains why fertilizer prices are spiking, how long it could last, and what practical steps you can take right now to protect your operation.
Why Oil Prices and Fertilizer Prices Move Together
To understand the fertilizer shock, you first need to understand the chemistry. Modern nitrogen fertilizers — urea, ammonia, and ammonium nitrate — are manufactured almost entirely from natural gas.
The Haber-Bosch process, developed over a century ago, uses natural gas both as a raw material and as the energy source to synthesize ammonia at scale. It is one of the most energy-intensive industrial processes on earth.
This means fertilizer prices are structurally tied to energy costs. When natural gas prices spike — which they do whenever oil markets are disrupted — the cost of manufacturing nitrogen fertilizer rises almost immediately.
Factories must either pass those costs on to buyers, curtail production, or shut down entirely.
The Iran-US conflict has compounded this in two ways. First, it has sent energy prices soaring globally.
Second, and more critically, it has blocked the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow waterway that handles roughly a third of the world’s fertilizer trade and around 20% of global energy exports.
Qatar, one of the world’s largest LNG exporters and a major supplier of gas that powers fertilizer production, has already declared force majeure on its exports.
Fertilizer plants in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE — which together represent a significant share of global nitrogen export capacity — have either shut down or are operating with severe logistical constraints.
The Numbers: How Bad Is the Price Spike Already?
The price movements have been swift and significant. Urea prices at the port of New Orleans — a global benchmark — climbed from approximately $475 per ton to between $520 and $683 per ton within the first week of the conflict.
That is a jump of up to 44% in just days. Analysts at StoneX and other commodity research firms warn that further increases are likely if the disruption continues beyond the spring planting window.
The timing could not be worse for farmers in the Northern Hemisphere, where mid-March to April marks the critical window for fertilizer application ahead of planting.
It takes roughly 30 days for a vessel loaded with urea from the Persian Gulf to reach U.S. shores, plus another three to four weeks to move the product into farm country. That means supply disruptions that begin today will not be fully felt at the farm level for six to eight weeks — right in the middle of the growing season.
Beyond nitrogen, the shock is hitting phosphate fertilizers as well. Sulfur — a key raw material for phosphate production — is largely a byproduct of oil and gas processing.
With energy shipments through Hormuz severely disrupted, sulfur output has fallen, tightening global supply chains for DAP and MAP fertilizers too. Traders report that spot cargoes of sulfur have essentially disappeared from the market.
Africa Is Particularly Vulnerable
While the headlines focus on American and European farmers, sub-Saharan Africa faces a uniquely severe risk from this fertilizer shock — and the stakes are higher because the baseline is already fragile.
African farmers apply far less fertilizer per hectare than their counterparts in Asia, North America, or Europe.
Even small price increases can push fertilizer out of reach for smallholder farmers who are already stretched, leading them to apply less or none at all. The result is not just lower farm income — it is lower crop yields, reduced food availability, and heightened food insecurity across communities that have little buffer to absorb those shocks.
South Africa’s GrainSA notes that fertilizer already accounts for as much as 50% of production costs for some grain farmers.
A 40% spike in urea prices does not just squeeze margins — it potentially makes some crops commercially unviable to plant at all.
Countries that import the majority of their fertilizer needs — and most African nations do — are also at the mercy of global shipping rates and insurance premiums, both of which have spiked sharply since the Hormuz closure.
The cost of getting fertilizer to Mombasa or Dar es Salaam today is dramatically higher than it was two months ago, even if supply can be found.
The Sulphur and Phosphate Problem Nobody Is Talking About
Most of the public attention has focused on nitrogen fertilizers like urea. But agronomists and supply chain analysts are sounding alarms about a parallel crisis in phosphate fertilizers that has received far less coverage.
China and Indonesia are two of the world’s largest producers and consumers of phosphate fertilizers.
China sources more than half of its sulfur imports from the Middle East, while Indonesia relies on the region for nearly 70% of its sulfur supply.
With Hormuz effectively closed, both countries are scrambling to secure sulfur from alternative sources — a task that is proving extremely difficult. One Chinese sulfur trader described the situation bluntly: there are simply no spot cargoes available anywhere on the market.
If China responds by restricting its own fertilizer exports — which analysts say is increasingly likely, though it may not be formally announced — it would remove one of the world’s largest swing suppliers from global markets at the worst possible time.
The compound effect of nitrogen shortfalls from the Gulf, sulfur disruptions for phosphate production, and Chinese export controls could create a fertilizer squeeze unlike anything the world has seen since the 2022 post-COVID price surge.
What This Means for Your Planting Decisions
Farmers are already adjusting. Economists at the Food and Agricultural Policy Institute have noted that the price spike is likely to alter crop choices and fertilizer application rates across many farming regions.
When urea becomes prohibitively expensive, farmers face a difficult set of trade-offs: plant fewer hectares, switch to less fertilizer-intensive crops, apply reduced rates and accept lower yields, or absorb the cost and hope commodity prices compensate.
None of these options is painless. Planting less means less revenue. Switching crops means new production risks and potentially flooding alternative markets.
Reducing fertilizer application below optimal rates produces a well-documented yield penalty that is difficult to recover from mid-season.
And absorbing the cost is simply not viable for many operations already carrying input debt from prior seasons.
The strategic reality is that farmers who locked in fertilizer supply or pricing contracts before the conflict began are in a fundamentally different position from those who were planning to buy on the spot market this month.
This crisis, like the 2022 Ukraine-driven fertilizer shock before it, will demonstrate once again the premium value of forward procurement and supply security.
Practical Steps You Can Take Right Now
While the macro situation is largely outside any individual farmer’s control, there are concrete actions that can reduce your exposure and protect your bottom line in the months ahead.
First, audit your current fertilizer stocks immediately. Know exactly what you have on hand and how many growing weeks it covers at your standard application rate. This is the foundation of any decision you make from here.
Second, contact your input supplier today. Do not wait. Get clarity on what is available, at what price, and on what lead time.
Suppliers who have existing stock may prioritize long-standing customers, and those who call early will be better positioned than those who wait.
Third, explore efficiency-based alternatives. Variable-rate application technology, soil testing to identify fields where fertilizer response is strongest, and split application methods can all help you get more yield from less product. In a high-price environment, precision pays.
Fourth, reassess your crop mix if you have flexibility. Legumes fix atmospheric nitrogen and can reduce your dependence on synthetic inputs. Crops with lower fertilizer requirements may become more economically attractive if input costs remain elevated into the second half of the year.
Fifth, stay close to commodity price movements. Fertilizer price spikes can, in some market conditions, be accompanied by higher commodity prices for the crops that use them — particularly staple grains. Monitor both sides of the equation before making drastic input reductions.
How Long Will This Last?
That is the question every farmer and input buyer is trying to answer. The honest answer is that nobody knows with certainty, and forecasts are diverging sharply.
The optimistic scenario holds that the conflict is relatively short-lived, the Strait of Hormuz reopens within weeks, and supply chains normalize before the worst of the planting season damage is done.
Some energy analysts have pointed to diplomatic pressure and the economic cost to all parties as factors that could bring a resolution faster than markets currently expect.
The pessimistic scenario — and the one that fertilizer traders appear to be pricing in — is a disruption that extends well beyond the spring planting window, potentially through mid-2026.
In that scenario, the combination of delayed shipments, reduced production from Gulf-based plants, and constrained sulphur availability for phosphate production could sustain elevated prices for the rest of the agricultural year.
What is clear is that the fertilizer shock, unlike the oil price spike, does not correct itself quickly. Crop yield consequences from inadequate fertilization unfold over a full growing season and cannot be reversed once planting decisions are made.
That asymmetry — where the damage accumulates slowly but hits hard at harvest — is why farm budgets built on pre-crisis assumptions need to be revisited now, not later.
The Bottom Line for Farmers
The Iran-US conflict has created a two-front crisis for agriculture: fuel costs have surged at exactly the moment when field operations demand diesel, and fertilizer costs are climbing fast as the global supply chain for plant nutrients fractures under the pressure of a blocked Strait of Hormuz.
Oil price shocks make the news. Fertilizer shocks make the difference between a profitable season and a loss. Smart farmers are already adapting — auditing stocks, calling suppliers, revisiting crop plans, and looking hard at input efficiency.
The farmers who wait for certainty before acting will find that the window to respond has already closed.
The world’s food supply has surprisingly thin buffers. Your farm’s financial resilience may depend on how quickly and decisively you respond to what is already, right now, a supply and price emergency — not a future risk.
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