A food scare is inevitable because of the Iran war – and it could get worse

World food prices have reached their highest levels since the energy crisis of the 1970s, caused by conflicts in the Middle East, once inflation has been adjusted. Could we be headed for a new record – the worst food crisis ever – as fuel, fertilizer and pesticide prices rise due to unrest in Iran?

Due to rising costs, many farmers are likely to plant less in the coming weeks, leading to shortages and higher food prices later this year. This is already happening, but how bad it will be depends on a lot of factors, from how long the war is going on to when the climate caused by extreme global warming hits the crops this year.

Matin Qaim of the University of Bonn in Germany says: “There is a chance that this will turn into a big disaster for the poor and the hungry.”

“We are in the middle of a perfect storm, and there is no easy way out of this,” says Tim Benton of the University of Leeds, UK.

After declining for decades after the peak of the 1970s, world food prices have actually been rising since the 2000s and are not far from that 1970s record. Climate change is a major factor, with extreme heat, floods and storms hitting crops, sometimes to the extent of causing food earthquakes such as those seen in 2010. The covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s war against Ukraine also led to large jumps.

The rise in biofuel production is also driving up food prices, with more than 5 percent of food calories now being converted into fuel rather than consumed. Although some governments have agreed that food-based biofuels should be phased out, a recent report estimated that 92 percent of biofuels will still be in food by 2030.

Now, US and Israeli attacks on Iran are leading to severe shortages of raw materials essential for food production and distribution. Fat is the obvious one. Diesel fuel powers many farm machines, as well as ships and food trucks, so rising oil prices eventually lead to higher prices in supermarkets.

There is also compost, which is important for feeding the world. Qaim says: “If we stop using mineral fertilizers worldwide, maybe half the world will starve.

Nitrogen fertilizers are made by using hydrogen and atmospheric nitrogen to produce ammonia, with natural gas providing the hydrogen and energy. Ammonia is often converted to urea, a solid ready for transport.

Due to its abundant natural gas reserves, Qatar has become a leading producer of fertilizers. It accounts for 15 percent of the urea used worldwide, says Anthony Ryan of the University of Sheffield, UK, and 50 percent of the urea sold on international markets. Currently, a small amount of urea is passing through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.

That’s not all. Countries like India, Bangladesh and Pakistan produce most of their own fertilizer, but they do so with gas from the Persian Gulf. Now, the fertilizer plants in these communities must be closed. With natural gas production facilities in the war-torn region, this disruption could continue for years. Meanwhile, a major fertilizer plant in Australia also had to close due to the accident.

As a result, nitrogen fertilizer prices have risen by more than a third and could rise significantly, says Qaim. “If fertilizer prices double, food prices could easily go up by 20 to 30 percent.”

And it’s not just urea. Gulf countries such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are also major producers of sulfur fertilizers, which are needed in many areas, and of sulfuric acid, which is needed to convert mined phosphate into forms that plants can use.

There are also pesticides, which are also important for maintaining food production around the world – especially as more and more pests become more common and more problematic as the world warms. Pesticide prices are linked to naphtha, which is a by-product of many chemically modified fossil fuels, including plastics widely used in food packaging.

“Three of the world’s naphtha transport hubs have been hit by drones so far in March,” analyst Jide Tijani at Argus Media UK. This includes the port of Ust-Luga in Russia, which was recently hit by Ukraine, as well as sites in Qatar and the UAE.

All these effects will feed into the higher prices of food and many other goods in the coming months and years. Jason Hill of the University of Minnesota says: “The number of markets affected by this is staggering.

It’s not just that farmers will have to pay more for fuel, fertilizer and pesticides, says Qaim, assuming they can get them at all. That is, if farmers are not sure that they can make a profit, they can plant different crops or not plant at all. Meanwhile, speculation and profit-making could drive prices higher, says Jennifer Clapp of the University of Waterloo, Canada.

How bad will it get? The sharp rise in food prices in the 1970s occurred because global food supplies were depleted, says Clapp. Currently, food reserves are plentiful, but that could change if the conflict continues, especially if climate-induced climate change also affects yields.

“There’s a lot of potential for this to get out of hand and lead to bigger problems, if not worse,” says Clapp. “If we have major weather events, it can definitely become a lot worse.”

“At the end of the day, prices are world prices, and fertilizer is going up everywhere, and food prices are going up everywhere. [People who] those at the bottom of the income distribution are the ones who suffer the most, because they spend more on food. They cannot afford the skyrocketing prices of food,” says Qaim.

Moreover, there have already been significant cuts in international aid, and more are likely. “As food prices go up and international aid is needed more, the availability of money goes down and the price of what it can buy goes up,” says Benton.

The consequences will include civil unrest in the worst-hit countries, says Paul Behrens of the University of Oxford. “Every time we’ve seen a rise in food prices in the past, you see this volatility.”

How can countries prevent food poisoning?

There is a way to minimize the damage. “We’re burning about 15 million tons in Europe every day for fossil fuels,” says Behrens. “This is a crazy way to generate energy.”

Biofuel production is largely driven by government subsidies and mandates, so governments have the power to limit biofuel production and release more food into the market. Qaim says: “It can definitely help.

He thinks there should be an international agreement to limit the production of biofuels in food when food prices rise too much, but countries are not doing this individually. He says: “We have not seen that happen in previous crises.

Instead, what is likely to happen is for countries to increase biofuel production to try to reduce fuel price increases, says Qaim. This could have a greater impact on food prices than anything else.

It’s starting to happen. The US has announced it will increase the proportion of bioethanol in fuel to try to limit price increases, and Australia is also considering it.

The point is, increasing the production of biofuel from food will not make much difference to fuel prices, but it has a big effect on food prices. For example, in America, a third of corn is converted into bioethanol, but this bioethanol provides only a few percent of the gasoline supply, says Hill. “There is a disproportionate impact on the food market.”

Simon Donner of the University of British Columbia, Canada says: “Mixing more ethanol with gasoline is a policy of the 1990s, which does not help fight air pollution or climate change. “Rising oil prices could be an opportunity to help Americans switch to the clean and advanced technology of the future: electric cars. On the contrary, the US government is going backwards.”

But the whole world will not want to be put in the same situation again. “This is a big shock to the system, so even if things were to return to the status quo in terms of shipping and production and such, there will be, on everyone’s mind: ‘How can we create a more sustainable system?’,” says Hill.

Accelerating the transition to renewable energy, electric cars and heat pumps, which are needed for a net-zero transition, will also make the economy less vulnerable to oil price shocks. But more than that, we also need to get the entire chemical industry out of fossil fuels, says Ryan.

For nitrogen fertilizers, that means producing it with electricity instead of natural gas. “Basically, you can make ammonia with no greenhouse-gas-emissions. The technology is there. What we don’t have is enough renewable electricity,” says Ryan.

And with the increasing demand for electricity to power data centers for artificial intelligence, this situation seems unlikely to improve soon unless the AI ​​bubble bursts.

In the meantime, there is much that can be done to reduce fertilizer use. In fact, fertilizers are used excessively in many places, with excessive washing into rivers and oceans or turning into the powerful greenhouse gas nitrous oxide. Ways to reduce overuse include better farming practices, crop and legume rotation, better use of manure and growing plants that use fertilizers more efficiently.

“So it’s a push towards sustainable farming practices, but sustainable practices don’t equal fertilizer,” says Qaim. He says that continuing with natural things can cause prices to rise due to low production and deforestation due to the need for more land.

“We need a change in the food system,” says Behrens, and part of this must be a change in diet – for example, getting most of our protein from beans and legumes that make their own fertilizers, instead of grain-based meat. “It makes a big difference,” he says.

Topics:

• food and drink/
• agriculture