The British newspaper The Telegraph has warned that extending the conflict in the Middle East by a month or more risks an unprecedented crisis in the fertilizer market.
As the newspaper notes, the US and Israeli military operation against Iran has disrupted supplies of urea, ammonia and sulphur for 27 “critical“ days.
The crisis comes just as the spring planting season in the main agricultural regions of the Northern Hemisphere and the winter season in Australia are approaching.
“It would be bad enough if the Strait of Hormuz opened tomorrow, but if the war continues for another month or more, it would be truly "a monstrous crisis, the likes of which none of us have seen," the newspaper quoted Abdolreza Abbassian, former head of the trade and markets department at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, as saying.
As reported by International Monetary Fund spokeswoman Julie Kozak on March 19, the conflict in the Middle East and the related disruptions in logistics and fertilizer supplies pose a risk of rising global food prices, and the increase in food costs could be significant.