A Center for American Progress analysis found that the war is “forcing rural households to pay at least $26 more per week at the pump and threatening to push grocery prices even higher in the months ahead.”
A worker fuels a tractor on a farm in Rocky Hill, Connecticut on April 2, 2026.
(Photo by Mark Mirko/Connecticut Public via Getty Images)
Brett Wilkins
May 15, 2026
COMMON DREAMS
President Donald Trump won the 2024 election largely on a promise to alleviate the affordability crisis, but an analysis published Friday underscores how rural Americans—the bedrock of the MAGA base—are disproportionately paying the price for the US-Israeli war of choice on Iran.
“Rising gas and fertilizer prices tied to the Trump administration’s war in Iran are driving up costs for rural families, farmers, and consumers across the country,” notes the analysis from the Center for American Progress (CAP), a liberal think tank.
“Gas prices rose 52% between February 27, the day before the war with Iran began, and May 14, forcing rural households to pay at least $26 more per week at the pump and threatening to push grocery prices even higher in the months ahead,” the publication continues.
“The economic fallout from the conflict is disproportionately affecting rural America, where households already spend significantly more on gasoline and energy and where farm operations depend heavily on diesel fuel and fertilizer,” CAP added. “As oil prices rise and shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remains disrupted, farmers are facing mounting input costs during an already difficult economic period.”
CAP researchers also found that the gap between urban and rural fuel costs has increased from $46 to $70 per month since the start of the war.
With diesel fuel accounting for over 60% of their fuel expenditures, farmers are facing the prospect of paying at least $350 more per day to operate a single tractor.
“There are 453 farming-dependent counties across the country, and rising fuel and fertilizer costs could force more small and medium-sized farms out of business if disruptions continue,” the analysis warns.
As Common Dreams reported this week, Trump’s illegal war of choice and erratic tariff policies are hurting farmers and consumers while Big Ag profits from fast-rising fertilizer and food prices.
Likewise, while consumers feel the pain of skyrocketing pump prices, Big Oil is reaping prodigious profits fueled by scarcity and market uncertainty due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and other war-related causes.
A report published earlier this month by the office of Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) projects that US drivers could pay an additional $876 per year—or $1,753 for a family with two cars—on gasoline per year if pump prices remain at their current levels.
The CAP analysis comes on the heels of the latest consumer price index, released earlier this week, which revealed that inflation has risen to its highest level in three years largely due to rising fuel and food costs.
According to CAP, lower-income households—which spent a third of their pretax income on food in 2024—“will be hit hardest” by rising grocery prices, as the highest-income households spent just 6.4% of their before-tax earnings on food.
“Families in rural communities are already stretched thin, and this conflict is making everyday necessities even more expensive,” CAP senior fellow and analysis co-author Anne Knapke said Friday. “Higher gas prices, rising fertilizer costs, and more expensive groceries are all contributing to an affordability crisis that this president is making worse every day.”
Asked earlier this week if he thinks about the financial hardship his war is inflicting on Americans, Trump flippantly replied, “Not even a little bit.
Could High Fertilizer Prices Change the Face of Farming?
The development of agroecological and regenerative approaches would see a food system that is not only less vulnerable to the supply chain shocks being felt today, but would be better for the environment, human health, and animals.
Farmer Russell Hedrick prepares a blend of minerals, biologicals, and fertilizers to be sprayed onto his fields while they are being seeded in Hickory, North Carolina, on April 10, 2026.
(Photo by Grant Baldwin / AFP via Getty Images)
Frances Macguire
May 17, 2026
The development of agroecological and regenerative approaches would see a food system that is not only less vulnerable to the supply chain shocks being felt today, but would be better for the environment, human health, and animals.
Farmer Russell Hedrick prepares a blend of minerals, biologicals, and fertilizers to be sprayed onto his fields while they are being seeded in Hickory, North Carolina, on April 10, 2026.
(Photo by Grant Baldwin / AFP via Getty Images)
Frances Macguire
May 17, 2026
Common Dreams
The global disruptions caused by the war in Iran have brought renewed focus to the vulnerability of global fossil fuel supply chains. But what has received less attention is how the war also highlights the vulnerability of industrial agriculture supply chains reliant on massive amounts of chemical fertilizers and other inputs. Like oil and gas, these frequently travel long distances through turbulent waters.
A big advantage of renewable energy technologies like solar is that sunlight doesn’t have to pass through the Straits of Hormuz. The same can be said for many of the inputs required for agroecological and regenerative farming systems. The development of these approaches would see a food system that is not only less vulnerable to the supply chain shocks being felt today, but would be better for the environment, human health, and animals. It would be healthier, kinder, and more resilient.
A global economic recession and possible food shortages are looming as the war in Iran grinds on. While the devastating impact of the current conflict on people, their families, and communities must be foremost in our minds, the shock waves from the crisis are having system-wide impacts on energy supplies, cost of living, and food prices. As the seasons turn and farmers prepare to plant their crops, they are facing a new pressure: a sudden and critical rise in fertilizer and fuel costs.
As the price of petrol and diesel have skyrocketed since the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, so too have fertilizer costs due to shortages of urea and ammonia. A third of the world’s key fertilizer chemicals pass through the Strait, and prices have risen steeply since the outbreak of war, with predictions that prices for nitrogen-based fertilizers like urea could roughly double if the war drags on. Alongside a rise in red diesel prices, agricultural profit margins are highly volatile.
The current war is heinous, but inadvertently it has created an inflexion point, a moment to rethink global distribution of goods, and our broken food system.
Farmers taking the financial hit will likely pass on the costs to the consumer, but this isn’t sustainable and undermines the financial, social, and environmental health of the global food system. What if we flip it? Could the Middle East War not only accelerate a shift to renewable energy but also reduce our dependency on fertilizer-hungry crops? Legumes such as beans and peas, which fix nitrogen in soils, root vegetables, soybeans, and hardy grains such as rye could be viable alternatives.
Since the Second World War, a burgeoning (and hugely profitable for a few) chemical industry has created food systems dependent on inputs such as fossil fuel-based fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. While delivering greater crop surplus, industrial farming has brought new problems: algal blooms, less wildlife and pollinators, monocultures, local air pollution, global climate change, and the loss of small-scale farming and farmers.
We’ve reached a tipping point; we overproduce food, a third of which is wasted, and too many people are eating too much of the wrong types of food. Noncommunicable diseases such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes are becoming a much bigger health burden than infectious diseases. Meanwhile, entrenched inequalities mean that, despite a global food surplus, millions of people go hungry every day, and 2.6 billion people can’t afford a healthy diet. An insatiable demand for meat now means that there are over 76 billion farmed chicken, pigs, and cattle in production around the planet, driving a largely invisible burden of animal suffering.
The current war is heinous, but inadvertently it has created an inflexion point, a moment to rethink global distribution of goods, and our broken food system. Growing crops that don’t need so many fossil fuel-derived chemicals but still provide enough food to feed our populations, and sustainable farming for current and future generations, is where we should be heading. We need to transition away from industrial agriculture, to food systems built on fairness—to people, animals, and the planet—not one geared toward feeding animals to feed ourselves. It’s a stark reality that over one-third of land used to grow arable crops is used to grow crops for animal feed.
Animal farming industry groups have been calling for public money to weather supply shocks, which begs the question of how resilient are the industrial systems we currently rely on. The US government provided $1 billion in response to avian flu, for example, while the European Union directed €46.7 million to Italian farmers, plus another €15 million for weather and animal-disease-related impacts in parts of Europe, and Canada extended livestock tax relief linked to bovine TB and extreme weather. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is also calling for urgent action in the form of government funds to protect the countries heavily exposed to import disruptions.
It’s clear that the current industrial animal farming model is not resilient. It depends heavily on unstable supply chains exposed to geopolitical shocks, climate change, extreme weather events, and disease outbreaks, and is a deeply inefficient use of plant resources to feed the world. Yet public money keeps being used to stabilize food systems that are structurally fragile, rather than directed toward sustainable and humane agriculture.
The current crisis in the Middle East has once again spotlighted our dependence on fossil fuels for energy and for food production. The growing success of renewable energy technologies—wind, solar, electric vehicles, and heat pumps—provides a roadmap to achieving energy independence at local and national levels. This has been achieved through several decades of policy and fiscal support, such as feed-in tariffs, technological advances, and growing public support.
Changing how we produce food could advance rapidly on the coat tails of our energy revolution. Calls for a just transition in farming and food production are growing from independent, small-scale farmers to development organizations, from Indigenous people’s groups to animal welfare charities. This transition would pivot away from destructive, insecure industrial agriculture toward more equitable, humane, and sustainable forms of agriculture, such as agroecology.
Rethinking food is not a nice to have, it’s essential if we are to strengthen the resilience of farmers, consumers, and nations, reducing exposure to geopolitical tensions, supply-chain disruptions, and future global shocks.
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Frances Macguire
Frances MacGuire is the director of research and animal welfare at World Animal Protection.
Full Bio >
The global disruptions caused by the war in Iran have brought renewed focus to the vulnerability of global fossil fuel supply chains. But what has received less attention is how the war also highlights the vulnerability of industrial agriculture supply chains reliant on massive amounts of chemical fertilizers and other inputs. Like oil and gas, these frequently travel long distances through turbulent waters.
A big advantage of renewable energy technologies like solar is that sunlight doesn’t have to pass through the Straits of Hormuz. The same can be said for many of the inputs required for agroecological and regenerative farming systems. The development of these approaches would see a food system that is not only less vulnerable to the supply chain shocks being felt today, but would be better for the environment, human health, and animals. It would be healthier, kinder, and more resilient.
A global economic recession and possible food shortages are looming as the war in Iran grinds on. While the devastating impact of the current conflict on people, their families, and communities must be foremost in our minds, the shock waves from the crisis are having system-wide impacts on energy supplies, cost of living, and food prices. As the seasons turn and farmers prepare to plant their crops, they are facing a new pressure: a sudden and critical rise in fertilizer and fuel costs.
As the price of petrol and diesel have skyrocketed since the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, so too have fertilizer costs due to shortages of urea and ammonia. A third of the world’s key fertilizer chemicals pass through the Strait, and prices have risen steeply since the outbreak of war, with predictions that prices for nitrogen-based fertilizers like urea could roughly double if the war drags on. Alongside a rise in red diesel prices, agricultural profit margins are highly volatile.
The current war is heinous, but inadvertently it has created an inflexion point, a moment to rethink global distribution of goods, and our broken food system.
Farmers taking the financial hit will likely pass on the costs to the consumer, but this isn’t sustainable and undermines the financial, social, and environmental health of the global food system. What if we flip it? Could the Middle East War not only accelerate a shift to renewable energy but also reduce our dependency on fertilizer-hungry crops? Legumes such as beans and peas, which fix nitrogen in soils, root vegetables, soybeans, and hardy grains such as rye could be viable alternatives.
Since the Second World War, a burgeoning (and hugely profitable for a few) chemical industry has created food systems dependent on inputs such as fossil fuel-based fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. While delivering greater crop surplus, industrial farming has brought new problems: algal blooms, less wildlife and pollinators, monocultures, local air pollution, global climate change, and the loss of small-scale farming and farmers.
We’ve reached a tipping point; we overproduce food, a third of which is wasted, and too many people are eating too much of the wrong types of food. Noncommunicable diseases such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes are becoming a much bigger health burden than infectious diseases. Meanwhile, entrenched inequalities mean that, despite a global food surplus, millions of people go hungry every day, and 2.6 billion people can’t afford a healthy diet. An insatiable demand for meat now means that there are over 76 billion farmed chicken, pigs, and cattle in production around the planet, driving a largely invisible burden of animal suffering.
The current war is heinous, but inadvertently it has created an inflexion point, a moment to rethink global distribution of goods, and our broken food system. Growing crops that don’t need so many fossil fuel-derived chemicals but still provide enough food to feed our populations, and sustainable farming for current and future generations, is where we should be heading. We need to transition away from industrial agriculture, to food systems built on fairness—to people, animals, and the planet—not one geared toward feeding animals to feed ourselves. It’s a stark reality that over one-third of land used to grow arable crops is used to grow crops for animal feed.
Animal farming industry groups have been calling for public money to weather supply shocks, which begs the question of how resilient are the industrial systems we currently rely on. The US government provided $1 billion in response to avian flu, for example, while the European Union directed €46.7 million to Italian farmers, plus another €15 million for weather and animal-disease-related impacts in parts of Europe, and Canada extended livestock tax relief linked to bovine TB and extreme weather. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is also calling for urgent action in the form of government funds to protect the countries heavily exposed to import disruptions.
It’s clear that the current industrial animal farming model is not resilient. It depends heavily on unstable supply chains exposed to geopolitical shocks, climate change, extreme weather events, and disease outbreaks, and is a deeply inefficient use of plant resources to feed the world. Yet public money keeps being used to stabilize food systems that are structurally fragile, rather than directed toward sustainable and humane agriculture.
The current crisis in the Middle East has once again spotlighted our dependence on fossil fuels for energy and for food production. The growing success of renewable energy technologies—wind, solar, electric vehicles, and heat pumps—provides a roadmap to achieving energy independence at local and national levels. This has been achieved through several decades of policy and fiscal support, such as feed-in tariffs, technological advances, and growing public support.
Changing how we produce food could advance rapidly on the coat tails of our energy revolution. Calls for a just transition in farming and food production are growing from independent, small-scale farmers to development organizations, from Indigenous people’s groups to animal welfare charities. This transition would pivot away from destructive, insecure industrial agriculture toward more equitable, humane, and sustainable forms of agriculture, such as agroecology.
Rethinking food is not a nice to have, it’s essential if we are to strengthen the resilience of farmers, consumers, and nations, reducing exposure to geopolitical tensions, supply-chain disruptions, and future global shocks.
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Frances Macguire
Frances MacGuire is the director of research and animal welfare at World Animal Protection.
Full Bio >
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