Energy shock talk grabs headlines but the Iran war is also driving the world towards a food crisis | Heather Stewart

It’s peak avocado harvest season in Tanzania’s lush southern highlands, but growers are racing against time to find buyers for the precious green fruits before they become too ripe.

Donald Trump’s disastrous war in the Middle East is being felt in global energy markets, but oil and gas are not the only products passing through the maritime chokepoint of the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict is also hitting supply chains elsewhere.

Tanzanian avocado shipping routes to lucrative Gulf markets and beyond are blocked and air freight capacity is significantly reduced.

The Tanzania Horticultural Association recently warned its members: “Shipping companies have currently suspended the acceptance of bookings for shipments to all market routes and destinations, including Europe, the Middle East, India and China. »

Transform Trade, a campaign group that works with small-scale farmers, has collected evidence of the impact of the war. He says many smallholders have to accept prices as low as 50% of the usual rate or struggle to sell.

Meanwhile, in Mombasa, Kenya, warehouses are filling with mountains of tea that would normally be headed to the Gulf or key markets like Pakistan to be processed, blended and packaged. Here too, producers are forced to accept extremely low prices or are unable to find markets at all.

Alice Oyaro, chief executive of Transform Trade, said: “Apart from the devastating impact on civilians directly affected by war, there are serious global consequences that risk being overlooked. The story we are unlikely to hear is about the small-scale producers responsible for most of the world’s jobs and almost all of the world’s food.”

Because they are ripening in East Africa, avocados and tea are urgent examples of how the immediate aftermath of conflict is impacting the livelihoods of ordinary citizens thousands of miles away.

As the war enters its fourth week with no sign of de-escalation, stories like these, which go far beyond the headline-grabbing crisis in the energy sector, will proliferate.

Getting food to export markets is now a pressing problem for some producers, but millions of producers around the world will be affected by soaring fertilizer costs.

The world could be heading not only towards an energy shock, but also towards a food crisis – with its worst consequences in the countries of the South.

As UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the UN trade think tank, said last week, the prices of fossil fuels and fertilizers are intimately linked: oil and gas processes provide inputs for their manufacture, and because they then need to be transported.

Natural gas is used in the Gulf region to create urea, used in nitrogen fertilizers essential for increasing agricultural yields. Hormuz is a key chokepoint for exporting it.

Likewise, significant disruptions have been reported in the supply of sulfur, a byproduct of oil and gas refining and another essential ingredient in fertilizers, among other products.

The countries most immediately affected will be those that usually source their fertilizer from Gulf producers, via Hormuz. China and Russia, two of the world’s other biggest producers, are also delaying exports amid a deepening global supply crisis.

UNCTAD said the latest data (from 2024) showed that Sudan gets more than half of its fertilizer through Hormuz; Sri Lanka, more than a third; Tanzania 31%.

However, over time, supply bottlenecks and disruptions where infrastructure has been impacted are likely to drive up fertilizer costs worldwide. So farmers, from small subsistence farmers to agribusiness giants, will face a double whammy: higher energy bills and more expensive fertilizer.

The impact will be felt everywhere, but especially where times are already tough. As UNCTAD said: “Higher costs of energy, fertilizer and transport – including freight rates, bunker [ie ship] fuel prices and insurance premiums – can increase food costs and intensify cost of living pressures, particularly for the most vulnerable.

This latest crisis – after the energy shock of the war in Ukraine and the global health emergency linked to Covid – also hits “at a time when many developing economies are struggling to service their debt”.

Rising global interest rates, in response to soaring inflation expectations, could exacerbate this struggle – making it difficult for governments to take steps to cushion the blow to vulnerable consumers.

Indeed, a devastating analysis by the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), also released last week, suggests that almost 45 million more people could fall into acute famine if the conflict continues and oil prices remain above $100 a barrel.

Countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia would be hardest hit, he warns, pointing to local reports suggesting that the costs of basic food items have already increased by 20% in Somalia.

“If this conflict continues, it will send shockwaves across the world, and families who already cannot afford their next meal will be hit hardest,” said Carl Skau, WFP deputy executive director.

Even if Trump’s latest strategy of giving Iran a 48-hour deadline to reopen Hormuz succeeds, the destruction of energy infrastructure and the backlog of ships awaiting transit mean the impact will still be felt for many months.

The heaviest price of this reckless conflict is being paid by civilians in Iran and across the Middle East, but small farmers in Tanzania and Kenya can already bear witness to its impact on livelihoods thousands of miles away. As fuel and fertilizer prices rise, Trump’s war appears increasingly likely to have the unacceptable side effect of amplifying world hunger.