The Strait of Hormuz Crisis Is a Ticking Clock for Global Food Security. Here’s Why.

The war launched against Iran on February 28, 2026 has transformed the Strait of Hormuz—through which about a third of the world’s traded fertilizers and a fifth of its liquefied natural gas normally pass—into an impassable chokepoint . Within days of the US–Israeli airstrikes, tanker traffic plummeted from roughly 130 ships per day to single digits, a decline exceeding 95% . Three months later, the waterway is still largely paralyzed, and the consequences are no longer theoretical: the cost of fertilizer and fuel has risen by 67–80% in many regions, squeezing farmers in the world’s most fragile countries at the worst possible moment—planting season.

A fertilizer supply chain in freefall

The connection between a maritime blockade and food prices begins with natural gas, which determines 70–90% of the cost of producing nitrogen fertilizer . The same conflict that closed the strait also disrupted gas production in the Gulf, causing a drop in output and a surge in prices. With gas supplies constrained and the shipping route blocked, finished fertilizer shipments have been cut off at their source.

Price spikes have been immediate and severe. By mid-April 2026, granular urea prices had risen 52% in the United States and 60% in Brazil, with weekly increases approaching 20% at the height of the panic . Because the last ships to leave the Gulf before the blockade are only now reaching their destinations, the real supply gap is just beginning to materialize . This means the worst of the fertilizer shortage is still ahead.

Farmers in Sudan and Africa are cutting back right now

The impact is not an abstract economic forecast—it is unfolding in real time. In Sudan, a country already devastated by civil war and acute hunger, farmers say the spike in fuel and fertilizer costs will force them to cut back on planting this summer, directly restricting food production . Sadig Elamin, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s senior food security analyst in Sudan, warned that overall production could drop by “not less than 40%” if the shock persists, adding “salt to the wound” of an existing hunger catastrophe .

The same pattern is repeating across the Sahel and the Horn of Africa, where the annual planting season has begun and farmers cannot afford the inputs they need . Without fertilizer, yields will fall—and with them the food supply for tens of millions of people later in 2026 and into 2027.

Why the UN and UK are sounding a global alarm

The warnings from global institutions have been escalating for weeks, driven by the unique convergence of timing, geography, and commodity dependence.

In late May, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) called the blockade “not a temporary shipping disruption” but “the beginning of a systemic agrifood shock” that could trigger a “severe global food price crisis” within six to 12 months . The shock, the FAO explained, is unfolding in stages: energy first, then fertilizer, then seeds, lower yields, commodity price increases, and finally food inflation .

A separate UN task force warned in mid-May that tens of millions face “hunger and starvation” if fertilizers are not soon allowed through the strait . The World Food Programme has estimated that a conflict lasting beyond June could push an additional 45 million people into acute food insecurity on top of the 318 million already affected . The International Rescue Committee described the situation as a “food security timebomb” that “could outstrip the Ukraine shock” because it is simultaneously constraining fuel, fertilizer, LNG, and cooking gas supplies rather than a single commodity like wheat .

On May 22, UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper warned bluntly that “the world is sleepwalking into a global food crisis” and that tens of millions will go hungry if the strait is not reopened .

The crop calendar is the real deadline

What makes the crisis uniquely dangerous is its collision with the agricultural calendar. FAO Chief Economist Máximo Torero has repeatedly emphasized that the decisions farmers make right now about fertilizer use, imports, and crop selection will determine how sharply food prices rise by late 2026 and early 2027 . If farmers miss the planting window or plant with reduced inputs, the resulting shortfall cannot be recovered later—the harvest will simply be smaller.

That is why the UN’s language has grown increasingly urgent. “The clock is ticking,” Torero said in April. “If we don’t follow the crop calendar and we don’t have the inputs in the time that is needed for planting…producers will have to produce with less inputs, and therefore they could have lower yields, and that will affect the next season” .

The window for preventive action is closing quickly. A UN statement issued in late May placed the timeline for a full-blown crisis squarely in the second half of 2026 and into 2027, depending on whether alternative trade routes can be established, export restrictions avoided, and humanitarian fertilizer flows protected .

The Strait of Hormuz is not just an energy artery; it has become the fuse for a global hunger emergency that will be measured in months, not years.