Maps made by Benjamin Nowak[1] paint a portrait, in the midst of a crisis linked to the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz[2] and at the very moment when the G7 meeting in Paris made it a leading subject, a global market for nitrogen fertilizers organized according to an oligopolistic logic.
This exercise, carried out using FAO data from 2023, represents a valuable snapshot of the state of the global nitrogen fertilizer market as it was organized between two major geopolitical crises: the invasion of Ukraine by Russia first (2022), the war Middle East triggered by the United States and then Israel (2026). This note intends to extend the reading of these maps by proposing a geopolitical, geoeconomic and historical approach to the global nitrogen fertilizer markets.
A few reminders in the preamble. Fertilizers are agricultural inputs intended to provide soils and plants with the nutrients essential for crop growth. By returning to the soil the nutrients carried away by the harvests, they directly support agricultural yields (excessive or unbalanced use can, however, degrade the soil and the environment[3]).
Nitrogen (N) is one of the three major nutrients provided by these fertilizers, with phosphorus (P) and potassium (K), each having distinct and complementary functionalities. It is the massive use of these inputs, to the detriment of the efficiency of their use, which allowed the leaps in agricultural production that we experienced in the 20th century and during the green revolution (1960s to 1990s). Even today, they remain vital strategic inputs to guarantee global food security: while 40% of the world’s caloric intake comes from the three major staple crops (wheat, rice, corn), these cereals absorb almost half of the nitrogen used in the world.
One of the specificities of nitrogen fertilizers, which are the most used in the world[4]resides in their method of manufacture : these require the use of a large quantity of natural gas, which also represents between 60 and 80% of the cost of producing nitrogen fertilizers, depending on the region and the local gas price. This structural dependence on hydrocarbons explains the current geography of the major producing countries, and contributes to making this input a major geopolitical subject.
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SOURCE : Agriculture Stratégies – Newsletter n°68.
