Conflict-driven disruption to fertiliser supply chains in the Middle East is raising the risk of price shocks across Africa, with analysts warning that benchmark urea prices could approach levels seen after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, when global prices roughly doubled, impacting food security.
Africa imports more than 6mn tonnes of fertiliser annually and remains heavily dependent on external suppliers, particularly for nitrogen-based products such as urea and ammonia produced in the Gulf. Disruptions to shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, a key maritime corridor, have tightened supply and increased costs.
Urea export prices in the Middle East had risen by around 40% to above $700 per tonne as of mid-March from below $500 prior to the US and Israel joint attacks on Iran, according to Argus, a specialist energy and commodities price reporting agency, highlighting the market’s sensitivity to geopolitical shocks.
Fertiliser markets are structurally vulnerable because production is concentrated in a small number of exporting regions, while most sub-Saharan African countries lack domestic manufacturing capacity. A handful of North African producers, Morocco, Egypt and Algeria, dominate continental output, but exports are insufficient to meet broader regional demand.
Egypt, which supplies about 8% of globally traded urea, may struggle to produce nitrogen fertiliser after Israel declared force majeure on gas exports to the country, according to Scotiabank and Rabobank analysts. Prices for nitrogen-based fertilisers such as urea could roughly double if the Iran war, now in its third week, drags on.
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned that fertiliser affordability is a key factor affecting crop production in developing economies, where farmers often cut fertiliser use when prices rise. Lower fertiliser use can quickly translate into reduced crop yields, particularly for staple crops such as maize, wheat and rice.
The most important fertilisers in the short term are nitrogen-based products such as urea: if farmers do not apply them for one season, yields will suffer, with the same true, to a lesser extent, for other key products such as those based on phosphate and potassium.
In many African countries, farmers already apply less than 20kg of fertiliser per hectare, compared with a global average of about 140kg per hectare. The 2022 fertiliser crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine forced many farmers to further reduce these already low application rates, resulting in even weaker crop yields – and higher food prices.
Svein Tore Holsether, chief executive of Yara International (OSE:YAR), warned that prolonged disruption to Gulf supply routes could have severe consequences for agriculture. “If the Strait of Hormuz was closed for a year it would be catastrophic,” he said, as quoted by The Guardian, adding that fertiliser markets are facing pressure from both supply constraints and rising gas prices, “a double impact”.
Holsether added that Europe would always be able to outbid poorer countries. “The countries that are most vulnerable still pay the highest price,” he said. “In a global auction for fertiliser, Europe will have stronger buying power than poorer parts of the world, we need to keep in mind the magnitude of this before it is too late.”
The 2022 Russia-Ukraine fertiliser crisis sent urea to $925 per tonne, anhydrous ammonia above $1,635 per tonne at retail, and DAP above $1,000 per tonne, according to ProFarmer.
“The current crisis shares similarities, but there are key differences. For one, the Gulf’s exposure is much higher. Also, Russian fertiliser wasn’t removed from the market in 2022, but was instead rerouted. In 2026, there are fewer options for products trapped behind a closed Strait,” the industry publication writes.
Fertiliser costs are a key input in agricultural production, and price increases are typically passed through to consumers. The World Bank has previously warned that fertiliser price spikes feed directly into food inflation, particularly in import-dependent economies.
The continent’s largest agricultural economies — including Kenya, Ethiopia and Ghana — depend on imported fertiliser supplies to maintain crop yields. Price increases can therefore quickly translate into higher food prices and increased fiscal pressure on governments that subsidise fertiliser purchases.
Larger economies such as Ethiopia, Tanzania and Zambia also depend on imports despite growing demand, as local production capacity remains insufficient. Meanwhile, according to the UN’s trade and development agency (Unctad), more than half of war-torn Sudan’s fertiliser comes from the region, while for famine-prone Somalia the figure is close to one-third.
According to the Global Hunger Index 2025, hunger is considered “alarming” in seven countries worldwide, all but two of them in Africa: Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Madagascar, Somalia and South Sudan, while hunger remains “serious” across much of sub-Saharan Africa.
“Conflict remains the most destructive force driving hunger. Armed violence fuelled 20 food crises affecting nearly 140 million people in the past year. The wars in Gaza and Sudan illustrate how conflict devastates both livelihoods and lifelines: global famine-level food insecurity, concentrated largely in those two settings, more than doubled between 2023 and 2024,” the GHI report states.
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