The continued blockade of the Strait of Hormuz because of the U.S.-Israeli struggle in opposition to Iran has restricted the availability of fossil-fuel-derived artificial nitrogen fertilizers, inflicting costs to spike.
The United Nations’ Meals and Agriculture Group says lowered fertilizer use may trigger a world meals disaster, however the world’s small-scale household farmers—who produce a lot of the meals individuals eat—don’t use a lot of the fertilizers impacted by the struggle in opposition to Iran.
It’s the economic farms producing crops for ethanol, animal feed, and export that use essentially the most fertilizer—and, they use 30 to 50 p.c greater than they want, inflicting waste and air pollution.
If performed proper, a transition away from artificial fertilizers may enhance farmers’ livelihoods, individuals’s meals safety, the protection of ingesting water, and the well being of the atmosphere.
In fact, simply because this disaster is avoidable doesn’t imply individuals received’t be harm by it.
Farmers May Be Pushed Out of Enterprise
The economic farms utilizing essentially the most artificial fertilizer don’t develop meals. They develop discipline corn that’s inedible and is used primarily for ethanol, secondarily for animal feed, and, in tiny quantities, for junk meals elements like excessive fructose corn syrup.
The fertilizer scarcity attributable to the struggle may very well be used as an excuse to place the final remaining household farmers within the Midwest out of enterprise. Forty-three p.c of those farms are already owned by absentee landlords who make use of tenant “farmers,” which means corporations that function the driverless equipment that plows, crops, harvests, and sprays chemical compounds all around the fields.
The disaster is more likely to hit the manufacturing facility farm livestock farmers the toughest. They’re already serfs on their very own land, working for the dairy and egg corporations and meat packers. They’ll’t management the price of feed and so they can’t management the value they’re paid by their company patrons.
Their trade is dominated by American corporations Tyson and Cargill — in addition to Brazilian and Chinese language-owned JBS, Nationwide Beef, and Smithfield.
Congress may use the farm invoice to create an natural and grass-fed paradise. Due to the stewardship of the Native Individuals, the U.S. has the most effective soil and water sources on this planet, however they’re shortly being depleted by Farm Invoice selections that serve short-term earnings—and international conglomerates.
It’s not too late to show this round, however as with the whole lot, political will pushed by grassroots organizing is critical.
Individuals Would possibly Go Hungry
Precise meals shortages are unlikely. Starvation is an element of poverty, inequality, or battle—not meals availability. There’s loads of meals.
That mentioned, meals purchased on the grocery retailer may rise to costs that trigger actual ache. It doesn’t matter how a lot meals there’s if it’s unaffordable.
Those that depend on meals help or dwell in battle zones—at all times most in danger of experiencing life-threatening starvation—will undergo essentially the most.
That’s what occurs when fertilizer pegs meals costs to risky oil and fuel markets.
The individuals insulated from these fluctuations are those that purchase their meals straight from native regenerative natural farmers. In Africa, for instance, as GRAIN stories:
Chemical fertilisers are not often used on conventional meals crops like cassava in West Africa, sorghum within the Sahel, or banana across the Nice Lakes. Nor are indigenous rooster and cattle breeds ate up diets of fertiliser-intensive business feeds. Fertiliser tends for use most closely on money crops, like cotton or sugar cane. So, rising world fertiliser costs don’t essentially translate into greater meals costs in Africa, at the least for domestically produced meals.
Sadly, a rising variety of farmers have gotten caught up in what GRAIN and the Institute for Agriculture and Commerce Coverage name the Fertilizer Lure. Farmers who use artificial fertilizer—and the governments that subsidize them—are on the mercy of “a fertilizer cartel” that “holds the worldwide meals system hostage.”
In Africa, at the least 10 international locations have been subsidizing the fertilizer utilizing loans from the World Financial institution. In Malawi, these subsidies peaked in 2008/09 at greater than 16 p.c of the overall authorities funds. That’s $285 million or about $22 per citizen in a rustic the place Gross Home Product (GDP) per capita was lower than $300!
Fertilizer subsidies have been supposed to maintain the prices of fertilizers low, however they ended up having the other impact. With governments, international help companies, World Financial institution loans, and worldwide donors just like the Gates Basis footing the invoice, the value of fertilizer in Africa has been artificially inflated. Once more, from GRAIN:
When worldwide fertiliser costs spike, they have a tendency to achieve their most excessive ranges in Africa. Over the past surge in 2021, fertiliser corporations elevated their costs in Africa to ranges above these on worldwide markets, after which saved them there till 2023 when costs dropped elsewhere.
The opposite consequence of fertilizer subsidies is corruption. Essentially the most flagrant instance is Burundi the place farmers can’t get fertilizer with out paying bribes. Burundi spends 60 to 70 p.c of its agriculture funds subsidizing the nation’s monopoly fertilizer producer, billionaire Adrien Ntigacika’s FOMI. On this system, corruption pays; the governments of Angola, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia are additionally paying FOMI to arrange fertilizer factories.
False Answer #1 – “Fertilizer Sovereignty”
The fossil gasoline trade and the international locations beneath its sway say the answer to fertilizer provide disruptions is extra fossil-fuel-powered fertilizer crops—to create “native” sources that will make fertilizer-importing international locations “self-sufficient.”
GRAIN calls this ploy “Fertilizer Sovereignty” and factors out quite a few examples the place it’s confirmed to haven’t any profit for native farmers.
The false promise of “native” fertilizer is exemplified by the initiatives of Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote, the richest man in Africa. Dangote mentioned he would single-handedly finish Africa’s fertilizer imports, however he ships a lot of the urea he produces in Nigeria to the U.S. and Brazil. What he sells domestically he sells at costs set by worldwide markets.
Dagote’s want for pure fuel is driving extraction from Ethiopia’s Ogaden Basin. This solely began in 2014, but it surely’s already wreaking havoc on the well being of the individuals of the area, most of whom are nomadic pastoralists. The Guardian reported in 2020 (“The thriller illness bringing loss of life and dismay to jap Ethiopia”) that an estimated 2,000 individuals have died from publicity to lethal drilling fluids which have been contaminating the native water provide since 2014.
The devastating impacts on human well being from artificial fertilizer use doesn’t cease with the fossil fuels used to supply them.
The Nationwide Academy of Engineering calls artificial nitrogen fertilizer air pollution one of many “grand challenges” going through the world. Artificial nitrogen fertilizer:
Artificial nitrogen fertilizer can be linked to a bunch of well being issues, together with:
- Delivery defects. Nitrate in faucet water is chargeable for an estimated 2,939 instances of very low beginning weight; 1,725 instances of very preterm beginning; and 41 instances of neural tube defects within the U.S. annually.
- Most cancers. Nitrate air pollution of U.S. ingesting water is estimated to trigger as much as 12,594 instances of most cancers a yr. Cancers linked to nitrate air pollution embody colorectal, ovarian, thyroid,kidney and bladder most cancers.
- Deaths from air air pollution. One in eight untimely deaths worldwide are attributable to nitrogen oxide-heavy smog, and fertilizers are a serious supply of this air air pollution in agriculture states like California. Poor air high quality from artificial nitrogen fertilizer use on corn alone is related to 4,300 untimely deaths yearly in the US at a value of $39 billion.
- Much less nutritious meals contaminated with heavy metals.
The present U.S. ingesting water customary for nitrate, set in 1962, is 10 elements per million—but most cancers and different critical well being points are linked to ranges lower than one-tenth of the authorized restrict.
Artificial nitrogen fertilizer can be a serious supply of greenhouse fuel emissions.
The EPA refers to the usage of artificial nitrogen fertilizer within the U.S. as “Agricultural Soil Administration.” In response to the EPA, this “Agricultural Soil Administration” accounts for 266 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equal (MMT CO2 Equal.) launched into the environment. That’s extra greenhouse fuel emissions than most international locations.
U.S. agricultural soils presently draw down solely a tiny fraction—10.3 million metric tons—of the CO2 equal emitted by way of the usage of artificial nitrogen fertilizer. So till we finish the usage of artificial nitrogen fertilizer, it is going to be practically inconceivable to revive our soils’ and croplands’ capability to sequester carbon.
False Answer #2 – Synthetic Intelligence and Genetically Modified Microbes
We don’t want trade’s false options: “biostimulants” (genetically modified soil microbes to exchange the plentiful pure microbes simply cultivated by way of regenerative natural practices) or “precision agriculture” (the concept Ai-driven knowledge companies like Palantir will be sure that farmers apply the “correct amount” of fertilizer—with no promise to truly scale back its use).
The Meals and Agriculture Group’s coverage suggestions for the way to avert a fertilizer-shortage meals disaster are suspiciously just like what’s within the 2026 Home Farm Invoice (even after the Luna Modification):
Part 10201 exempts so-called “plant biostimulants” from Environmental Safety Company regulation.
As GRAIN factors out, these bioinputs are “agribusiness’s new poisonous lure.”
Bioinputs ought to be derived from helpful soil microorganisms and different pure methods to assist and defend plant development, however when trade makes use of the time period, it’s actually only a new title for a similar outdated GMOs.
For instance, BASF managed to get its Poncho/VOTiVO insecticidal seed therapy registered as a “biostimulant” although it’s simply the mix of a neonicotinoid pesticide that’s poisonous to pollinators and a harmful genetically engineered microbe (Bacillus thuringiensis or Bt).
This Farm Invoice part would go even additional than what BASF has pulled off up to now, fully deregulating “biostimulants.”
The 2026 Home Farm Invoice additionally lets Bayer and its enterprise companions break into packages meant to advertise regenerative agriculture. The phrase “regenerative” doesn’t seem on this Farm Invoice even as soon as, whereas the catch phrase Bayer got here up with for its enterprise mannequin, “precision agriculture” is within the invoice dozens of occasions. Identical to “precision fermentation” is genetically modified microbes spitting out GMO proteins, “precision agriculture” means the identical outdated GMOs, pesticides, and artificial fertilizers, solely with large tech’s synthetic intelligence making the choices as an alternative of farmers.
Beneath the guise of “precision agriculture,” the 2026 Home Farm Invoice lets the most important most industrialized farms get funds from the Environmental High quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and the Conservation Stewardship Program.
“Precision agriculture” is outlined as “managing, monitoring, or decreasing crop or livestock manufacturing inputs, together with seed, feed, fertilizer, chemical compounds, water, and time, at a heightened degree of spatial and temporal granularity and organic concentrating on to enhance efficiencies, scale back waste, and keep environmental high quality.” Discover the way in which that’s worded. Massive tech pitches farmers with the promise that investing of their instruments will imply spending much less cash on pesticides and fertilizers, however that’s not a requirement right here. The invoice says “precision agriculture” is about “managing, monitoring, OR decreasing … inputs.”
With the addition of “precision agriculture,” EQIP can be stretched to the breaking level, however the 2026 Home Farm Invoice wouldn’t increase its funds. Quite the opposite, EQIP can be reduce by $1 billion. With large tech’s “managing” and “monitoring” hoovering up scarce sources, there can be far much less EQIP cash for regenerative agriculture practices. Not a brand new drawback, sadly. Even with out “precision agriculture,” most EQIP {dollars} go to serving to manufacturing facility farms handle their manure lagoons.
The Actual Answer: Rising Extra Meals with Much less Artificial Fertilizers
In the event you ask the U.S. corporations that produce artificial nitrogen fertilizer—CF Industries Holdings, Potash Company of Saskatchewan, and Terra Nitrogen Firm—they’ll inform you farmers can’t develop meals with out it.
However natural farmers develop meals simply superb with out artificial nitrogen fertilizer.
And scientists say we should drastically scale back its use.
In response to the Union of Involved Scientists’ 2026 report, “Much less Fertilizer, Higher Outcomes: USDA Conservation Packages Profit Each Farmers and the Planet”:
Yearly, US farmers apply between 30 and 50 p.c extra artificial nitrogen fertilizer than their crops can really take up, and the surplus that runs off farm fields does hurt to individuals, ecosystems, and the local weather.
Voluntary conservation packages administered by the US Division of Agriculture provide scientifically confirmed methods for farmers to interrupt this cycle of fertilizer dependency, however they don’t seem to be sufficiently funded to satisfy demand, and deprived farmers typically can’t afford the up-front funding. The subsequent meals and farm invoice ought to make these packages accessible to extra farmers, and prioritize practices that enhance soil well being with out chemical compounds—which can even scale back the emissions that drive local weather change.
