IRAN’s chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz has not only squeezed the flow of oil shipments to a trickle; it has severely affected the global fertilizer market as well.
About 30 percent of the world’s fertilizer exports originate from the Middle East. In 2024, Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain accounted for 23 percent of the ammonia trade, 34 percent of the urea trade and 18 percent of the ammoniated phosphate trade.
Iran and Qatar alone ship out 16 million tons of fertilizer products through Hormuz annually.
Those countries have drastically slashed fertilizer deliveries after the United States and Israel started to rain bombs on Iran earlier this month. Iran countered by closing the Strait of Hormuz, and shipping has dropped by almost 80 percent.
That sent the price of urea soaring beyond $610 per ton.
The International Fertilizer Association (IFA) has warned that any “prolonged disruption” to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz “would quickly ripple through global fertilizer markets.”
The group said smallholder farms in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are “particularly vulnerable, as fertilizer availability and affordability directly influence crop yields and food production.”
During uncertain times, “it is critical that policymakers recognize fertilizers as a strategic component of global food systems and work to keep key agriculture supply chains functioning smoothly,” the IFA said.
The role of fertilizers in agriculture cannot be overstated. According to the Fertilizer Institute, “the responsible use of fertilizers helps increase the productivity of agricultural land by reducing nutrient depletion, increasing plant growth and improving crop yields.”
Based on 2023 figures, 199.4 kilograms of fertilizer is used per hectare of arable land in the Philippines, a drop from the 285.4 kg per hectare of arable land in 2022.
Remarkably, arable land has shrunk in hectarage, but fertilizer demand continues to rise. Fertilizer imports have in fact been surging since 2024, and are expected to hit 3.39 million tons by 2033.
Long before the Middle East war erupted, the price of fertilizer in the world market was already on an upswing, fueled in quick succession by the Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and China’s ban on fertilizer exports.
To its credit, the Marcos administration has taken steps to make sure the country’s fertilizer supply is protected from the geopolitical shocks of the widening Middle East conflict.
Earlier this week, Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said he will be meeting with major fertilizer-producing countries to find ways of assuring the flow of fertilizer imports is unimpeded.
Tiu Laurel has already met with Chinese Ambassador Jing Quan, and been assured that Beijing would not freeze exports to the Philippines. He will next talk with India, Russia and Belarus “to make sure that we have a supply of fertilizers moving forward.”
Tiu Laurel is also expected to follow up on the agreements, secured by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. during his state visit to China in January, with Chinese producers to lower the prices of fertilizer.
He said the Philippines has bought about 84 percent of its fertilizer needs for this year, but he is not sure if all of that would be delivered.
Keeping the supply chain intact is just part of a more comprehensive process. In its 2017 fertilizer price outlook, the Department of Agriculture recommended improving inventory and price monitoring, providing market assistance in regions where fertilizer is expensive to ensure supply and lower fertilizer prices by reducing additional transportation costs, introducing a balanced fertilization strategy to ease the impact of high fertilizer prices and adopting alternatives like organic, microbial and biorational fertilizers, to lessen dependence on chemical fertilizers.
Introducing biofertilizers is one strategy that has gotten the serious attention of the president. At a Malacañang briefing last Tuesday, he said the government will be teaching farmers how to use biofertilizers.
The Agriculture department has conducted trials on biofertilizers, and they yielded promising results, Marcos said.
The president said the country can eventually produce its own biofertilizers. The University of the Philippines in Los Baños, and other state universities and colleges have the technology to develop biofertilizers, he said.
That’s thinking long term.