A world food ‘catastrophe’ is underway if the Strait of Hormuz disruption persists, said the U.S. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
FAO warned on Monday that a prolonged crisis in the Strait of Hormuz could trigger a global agrifood catastrophe by disrupting fertilizer and energy exports, driving up food prices, and squeezing crop yields.
FAO Chief Economist Maximo Torero said poorer countries were most exposed because planting calendars meant delays in access to key inputs could quickly translate into lower output, higher inflation, and slower global growth.
The report indicates that global agriculture is highly exposed to the waterway blockage, risking higher commodity prices and food inflation.
FAO warned the situation could trigger a food crisis, as shipments of critical agricultural inputs remain blocked in the key waterway due to the US-Israel war on Iran.
Currently, food prices have not risen yet because existing stocks are absorbing the shock, the United Nations body’s chief economist, Maximo Torero, said in an interview on Monday, alongside David Laborde, director of FAO’s agrifood economics division.
But if traffic through the strait does not resume, the shocks to energy and fertilizer markets will translate into higher commodity and retail prices later this year and into 2027, Laborde added.
Moreover, the situation remains worrisome as exports of 20 to 45 % of key agrifood inputs rely on sea passage through the Strait of Hormuz, according to the FAO.
“We are in an input crisis; we don’t want to make it a catastrophe,” said Laborde. “The difference depends on the actions we take.”
The move has also triggered a global energy crisis, doubling at times the prices of oil and gas compared with pre-war levels.
Torero added that the increase in gas and oil prices will automatically add to food prices and supply shortages.
Why it matter?
Nearly half of the world’s traded urea—the most widely used fertilizer along with large volumes of other fertilizers are exported from Gulf countries via the Strait of Hormuz, making global agriculture highly exposed to any disruption there.
Recent disruptions to gas supplies and shipping have already forced fertilizer plants, which use natural gas to manufacture fertilizer, in the Gulf and beyond to shut or cut their output.
If traffic continues to stall in the chokepoint, farmers will be forced to produce with less fertilizer or increase the cost of their product, Torero said.
“This is why it’s so essential that the ceasefire continue, and it is so essential that it is not just a ceasefire but also that vessels start moving,” he said. “The clock is ticking.”
The blockade was initiated after the US-Israel-Iran conflict, after which Iran halted shipping operations or passage through the Strait of Hormuz in response to attacks that were launched on Tehran on February 28, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
