Multiple Facets Converging in Agriculture's Fertilizer Crisis

: 20 April 2026; Hits: 163; Rating:

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While the war with Iran has heavily contributed to the steep rise in prices, and to potentially creating fertilizer shortages, increasing fertilizer costs have plagued U.S. farms since the COVID-19 pandemic, not to mention the impacts of inflation and Russia's war against Ukraine.

With U.S. farmers already on a financial cliff, many worry this will push them over the edge.

A brief history

Like everything related to global markets, the sale and purchase of fertilizer, the materials needed to make it, and who consumes it, are complicated issues. World events have always shaped fertilizer prices, such as in 2009 when the economic crisis sent fertilizer prices soaring. So to truly understand what's happening — and how it impacts farmers across the country — we have to understand the economic trends over the past five to six years.

The pandemic in 2020 was a fuse for soaring fertilizer prices. Pandemic shutdowns disrupted global supply chains, idled production, and created bottlenecks in everything from mining to shipping. As economies reopened, demand snapped back faster than supply could respond, pushing prices sharply higher. By 2021, global fertilizer prices were already more than 25 percent higher year-over-year, with some retail prices jumping over 151 percent compared to 2020 levels.

Russia's war on Ukraine was like pouring gasoline on the resulting fire. Russia is one of the world's largest exporters of key fertilizers and fertilizer inputs. When the invasion began in February 2022, sanctions, export restrictions, and outright supply disruptions choked off a significant share of global supply. At the same time, Ukraine's ports — critical shipping lanes for agricultural inputs — were blocked or damaged, further tightening availability. Since the beginning of the conflict, prices have remained high.

And now we have the U.S. and Israel's war with Iran, which is more like a wildfire than a bomb. The war has disrupted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz — a chokepoint that carries a massive share of the world's energy and fertilizer inputs — cutting off or delaying supplies of ammonia, urea, and phosphates. Before the conflict, roughly 20 percent to 30 percent of global fertilizer trade and key inputs moved through that corridor, so when it tightened, prices responded fast.

Simultaneously, the war has driven oil and natural gas prices sharply higher, and that hits fertilizer from both sides of the ledger. Nitrogen fertilizer is built on natural gas, so higher energy costs mean higher production costs, while higher fuel prices also raise transportation and processing expenses. The result has been a rapid spike in prices — U.S. fertilizer costs have jumped an estimated 25 percent to 40 percent since the war began, with some nitrogen products surging even more.

As a friend succinctly said, this isn't just a supply problem or an energy problem — it's both at once.

VIEWPOINT-The global fertilizer situation has become a major headache for world food production.

On a more personal level

Global trade numbers and statistics about price spikes are, inevitably, an abstract way of considering the issue. What really matters is how those numbers affect farmers where the tractor tires meet the soil.

Here's the important thing to remember: All farms are different, and farmers are making decisions based on what's best for them. A farm's fertilizer program may differ from others based on the crops planted, the geographic region, the farm's finances, and soil quality. Some farms apply fertilizer in the fall after harvest. Others can finance fertilizer purchases at year end to lock in beneficial pricing. And some crops require more applications.

Luckily, AFBF's survey did a nice job of breaking down the data based on these factors. So if you want to understand how high prices impact farmers based on region or crop, you can do that.

As for my family's farm, we're somewhere in the middle. We grow corn and soybeans. We apply fertilizer to corn twice: at planting and after it pops up. As of right now, we purchased enough fertilizer to get through planting, but not enough for the second pass.

We are still considering whether to transition corn acres to soybean acres, although we already have all our seed purchased. Another wrinkle: Based on our location, we're usually starting to side dress while most farmers south of us are wrapping up. That would be a curse or a blessing — if there's fertilizer available, the price might dip by then, but we might also run out entirely.

The road ahead

Unfortunately, it already looks like we might be facing the same issues in 2027. As war in the Middle East continues, it's likely that supply will remain limited and prices will stay high. A survey by the National Corn Growers Association revealed that "for every one farmer expressing greater concern about fertilizer price and availability for the 2026 crop, there were nearly two farmers expressing greater concern for the 2027 crop."