“We have a few weeks to avoid what will likely be a major humanitarian crisis”alerted Jorge Moreira da Silva, head of a UN working group responsible for freeing the passage of fertilizers through the Strait of Hormuz, Monday May 11. Because, in addition to oil and gas products, fertilizers produced by the Persian Gulf countries have also been blocked for more than two months.
The former Portuguese MEP believes that “we could see a crisis that will plunge 45 million more people into hunger”.
Iran is in fact blocking this strategic crossing point in retaliation for the war launched by the United States and Israel on February 28. It usually passes through “a third of the world’s fertilizer trade transported by sea”or nearly 16 million tonnes. The Persian Gulf region is one of the main producers in the world: it notably supplies “30 to 35% of global urea exports”the most used fertilizer in the world, and approximately “20 to 30% of ammonia exports”according to a note from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
If the ships transporting these resources around the world are blocked, the production sites themselves have been affected by the war: the Qatari refinery of Ras Laffan and its ammonia factory were hit on March 2. Factories have suspended or reduced production in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Jordan and Qatar.
The Persian Gulf is also a crossing point for raw materials, such as sulfur and ammonia, which allow other countries to manufacture their own fertilizers. This is the case of Morocco, Tunisia, and even South Africa, which have therefore had to reduce their production since the start of the conflict. Liquefied natural gas, of which 20% of world trade comes from the Gulf countries, is also “the main source of energy for the production of ammonia, the basic component of all nitrogen fertilizers”, adds the International Food Policy Research Institute (Ifpri).
Résultat : “In India, some urea producers have started to reduce their production” et “in Pakistan, the gas supply to certain fertilizer factories has been suspended”please indicate the General Direction of French Trésor.
“Unlike oil, there is no internationally coordinated strategic reserve for fertilizers. When supplies are disrupted, they remain disrupted.”notes Jaron Porciello, researcher at Cornell University (United States), on The Conversation website.
Faced with these upheavals in global fertilizer supplies, which countries are the most affected and vulnerable? To answer this question, David Laborde, director of the agri-food economics division at the FAO, suggests asking three others: “Does the country use a lot of fertilizers? Are these fertilizers imported? Do these imports come from the Gulf?” The region is a key supplier for many countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
“Many African economies rely heavily on fertilizers imported from Gulf producers”underlines the FAO. Sudan thus imports 54% of its fertilizers, Tanzania 31%, Somalia 30%, Kenya 26% and Mozambique 22%, according to the UN. “Malawi is one of the African countries that uses the most fertilizer. It depends almost 100% on imports, 60% of which come from the Gulf”adds David Laborde.
The stakes on the continent are enormous: the agricultural sector is “dominated by small farmers whose capacity to absorb rising input costs or supply disruptions is limited”notes the review The Great Continent.
Asian countries are also among the hardest hit. Jordan imports 79% of its fertilizers from the Persian Gulf, Bangladesh 53%, Sri Lanka 36%, Pakistan 27%. As for India and China, they import around 20% each of their fertilizers, explains the UN. Their situation is all the more at risk as these countries practice intensive agriculture, applying large quantities of fertilizer per hectare.
“Delayed or insufficient deliveries could result in lower yields of staple crops, such as rice, wheat and corn, later in the yearfears the FAO. This represents a particularly serious risk for densely populated regions of Asia, where these crops make up the bulk of food consumption and are essential to food security.”
Experts still cite Brazil, a major exporter of soya, corn and sugar, which sources a fifth of its fertilizers from the Gulf. “If Brazilian farmers reduce their use of fertilizers, agricultural yields will inevitably fall”with consequences on global food markets, worries the FAO.
“Even if fertilizers passed, that would not solve all the problems.”
David Laborde, director of the agri-food economics division of the FAOÃ franceinfo
In addition to the availability of fertilizers, their delivery also raises questions. Agriculture depends on fuel, also partly blocked in the Strait of Hormuz, to run its tractors, import its seeds, send its harvests to the markets… “The war in the Middle East is affecting our ability to produce food, process it, move it, or, as in India where the population uses natural gas, cook it.”details David Laborde. Added to this is the threat of the return of El Niño, a phenomenon which disrupts the global weather, feared by scientists at the end of the year. “If we have a very strong episode, agricultural production will be damaged”fears David Laborde.
In the fields, the effects are already perceptible. On a larger scale, world prices have already increased significantly. If the war continues, they should be 15 to 20% higher in the first half of the year compared to last year, according to the FAO. According to experts, this increase will automatically lead to a drop in agricultural productivity, then a surge in food prices.
Governments are trying to deal with it. “India, which has heavily subsidized the purchase of fertilizers for fifty years, has realized that its fiscal capacities cannot be extended to infinity and [le Premier ministre] Narendra Modi called for agriculture that uses less fertilizer”assures David Laborde. In Bangladesh, daily life The Daily Star reports that the country has launched a call for tenders to find other fertilizer suppliers, such as Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Russia. Brazil, for its part, is in negotiations with Indonesia, according to Ifpri.
Jorge Moreira da Silva, from the UN working group on the passage of fertilizers, pleads for an agreement between the actors in the conflict which would allow the passage of five ships loaded with fertilizer and related raw materials per day. However, “even if the war stopped now, there is an inertiadeplores David Laborde. A number of players have been waiting to place new fertilizer orders. Everyone will enter the market at the same time, further contributing to the increase in prices.”
And two uncertainties will remain: “To what extent have fertilizer production capacities been affected by the strikes? And if we have to compensate for three months during which we did not produce, how are we going to send the fertilizer to its destination? We don’t have three times as many boats.”
