Iran War Shows Why Farmers Need an Off-Ramp from Their Fertilizer Dependence

Photo: Nitrogen fertilizer being applied to corn in a contoured, no-tilled field in Hardin County, Iowa – 1999. Photo credit: Lynn Betts – US Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service via Wikimedia Commons. Photo no. NRCSIA99241. Public Domain. Article by Kathryn Anderson. UCS: The Equation – March 17, 2026.

As the US-Israeli war against Iran disrupts shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, farmers are getting another reminder of how exposed they are to global fertilizer supply chains. Fertilizer is deeply tied to fossil fuels, and the strait is a major choke point for oil, gas, fertilizer, and fertilizer ingredients—about 33 percent of fertilizer traded by sea passes through it. US wholesale prices of nitrogen fertilizer rose more than 20 percent during the first week of the conflict. This vulnerability was already exposed in 2022, when Russia’s war in Ukraine sent fertilizer prices soaring. […]

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