Farmers Struggle as Fertilizer Shortages Fuel Global Food Crisis Amid Iran War

It’s planting season in America, and 70 percent of U.S. farmers cannot afford enough fertilizer to plant all their crops. About a third of the planet’s nitrogen fertilizer—the most widely used in global agriculture—must pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Thanks to the ongoing war on Iran led by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, that critical waterway remains effectively closed to most ships.

Analysts warn of a “slow-moving food crisis”: when farmers can’t buy fertilizer, they plant less, and months later, food becomes scarcer and more expensive. The United Nations estimates that 45 million people worldwide could face hunger due to the Strait of Hormuz blockade. While the situation is less severe in the U.S., American farmers are feeling the squeeze.

Fertilizer prices fluctuate by the minute, soybean farmers still face export tariffs, and diesel costs have risen sharply. In a hearing before the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee on Tuesday, Arkansas Republican Senator John Boozman declared that “food security is national security.” Yet the hearing produced few concrete solutions—particularly none that would end the war.

Trent Kubik, president of the South Dakota Corn Growers Association, told the committee about the hardships on his farm. “We expected our costs were going to be higher than normal, as we’d be purchasing [fertilizer] closer to peak demand season,” he said. “But with the war on Iran, they’re nearly doubling.” He’s not alone. In the first quarter of 2026, 86 American farms have already filed for Chapter 12 bankruptcy.

Meanwhile, fertilizer producers are reporting record revenues. Omanjana Goswami, a policy expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists, explained: “The fertilizer industry is one of the most heavily consolidated industries. At the same time that these companies are making billions of dollars in profits over the years, farmers have seen profit margins go down drastically because of the higher cost of fertilizer.”

Four major manufacturers now control nearly the entire U.S. fertilizer market—and they’ve increased nitrogen fertilizer prices by 28 percent since the war on Iran began in February, according to data from the University of Illinois.

Farmers are scrambling to adapt. Many are planting less food and switching to crops that require less fertilizer. “About 4 million acres of corn [in the U.S.] have been switched over to soybean, just to make up for the fact that fertilizer availability was much less this spring,” Goswami said. “That’s the thing that we feel the worst about,” Kubik added. “During the last 75 days, a lot of money was being made—but it wasn’t by farmers.”

Goswami warned that farmers are “thrown head first into a crisis every time global supply chains are hit.” This recurring crisis—seen during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020—stems from an unsustainable agricultural model that relies on massive fertilizer imports from overseas.