Warning food prices are set to rise in the UK due to the Iran war

This year, the most important commodity in agriculture is not sunshine or rain, it is fertilizer.

According to some estimates, nearly half of the world’s crop and livestock production depends on the incredible mix of minerals and chemicals that make up artificial fertilizers.

But the Iran the war raises prices and suppresses the availability of this basic element in the food chain at the beginning of the growth period in Europe and Asia.

British Fertilizers, farmers and farmers have told Sky News that rising costs are putting pressure on food producers and, in time, will lead to higher food prices for consumers.

Prices rose because compost is an energy product, dependent on the same natural gas we use to heat our homes and power our electricity grid.

The nitrogen that feeds plants around the world is produced by combining hydrogen from methane (natural gas) with nitrogen in the air (by the Haber-Bosch method, familiar to chemistry students with long imaginations) to form ammonia.

Refined ammonia, in the form of urea or ammonia nitrate, is a by-product of industrial fertilizers, and up to 30% of the world’s supply usually passes through the Gulf. As with oil and gas, the successful closure of Strait of Hormuz raised prices.

Urea rose from $300 a tonne at the beginning of the year to $700 at the end of March.

That leaves farmers with a choice: pay twice to produce conventional crops, which are costs you can’t pass on to consumers immediately, or go without them and see yields decline.

Either way, food prices will be forced up.

UK farmers, growers and ultimately consumers are exposed to these rising prices. Domestic fertilizer production has declined as industrial energy prices have risen and today we produce less than half of the synthetic fertilizer required by farmers.

With European manufacturing becoming increasingly uncompetitive, British exporters are having to look further afield.

At Nitrasol’s Great Yarmouth station, they meet demand for urea ammonia nitrate from Trinidad, which is sent first to Sunderland, then down the North Sea coast to Norfolk.

Many lorries arrive to be filled before heading to farms from Scotland to the South West.

Prices agreed with consumers before the start of the war are still being honoured, but Nitrasol chairman John Fuller says they will inevitably rise and, for the second time in four years, the UK is facing a rise in food prices.

‘Worse than after Ukraine’

“In the last six weeks it’s probably gone up by about 25% because we’ve had to fight some customers,” Mr Fuller told Sky News.

“We were sent last Sunday, and the farmers who bought in advance get the old price, but for those who left it until the last minute, I’m afraid we will have to buy new equipment, which is very expensive.

“It’s a very serious situation. In some ways, it’s worse than four years ago in Ukraine, and we all know what happened six months later.

“There was 10% inflation, and that set the government back quite a bit. And I just hope the government catches this.”

Mr Fuller, who sits as a Conservative peer in the House of Lords, wants the government to scrap the adoption of carbon emissions taxes from next January.

A measure aimed at curbing emissions, many businesses believe will add additional costs to the industry.

About 150 miles west, in the Cotswolds, beef farmer David Barton is already paying the price.

When he ordered the fertilizer to treat the pasture that will sustain his dairy cows and calves over the summer, and next winter as silage, he found prices had risen from £370 to nearly £500 a tonne, and it wouldn’t be available until April.

“I really need it this year, because we had a very dry summer last year,” he says.

“Our fodder stocks are low, and generally across the country low. But if I didn’t put any, it would be half the production.”

Beef farmers may not be able to pass on rising prices to consumers immediately. It has been sold on the world market and, although it has seen double-digit inflation for months, the price is set beyond the gate of David’s farm.

“Individual businesses have to take on all this risk, and take on all this price fear,” he says.

“For the country to have food security and food development, we need these food businesses like mine to be profitable.

“We cannot grow and continue to produce food if it is below our production costs. We need to ensure that we have more stability in our food supply to ensure that the country has the food it needs.”

‘Crisis’ as gas rises 90%

Horticulture is facing similar pressures, doubly so in the greenhouses of Lea Valley, north London, where half a billion salad greens are grown each year.

At Valley Grown Nurseries, where rows of crops are measured in miles, sweet peppers are ready to harvest and cherry tomatoes are a few weeks old.

They are supported by hundreds of kilometers of hot water pipes, kept below 20s centigrade by gas heating, and a constant supply of organic food.

Their gas bill has risen more than 90% in the past month but their prices, agreed with the supermarkets last autumn, cannot change.

“It’s a disaster, not just for this organization, but every organization involved in gas-powered food production,” says owner Jimmy Russo.

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Lee Stiles, of the Lea Valley Growers Association, said the government should declare horticulture an energy-efficient industry to reduce its energy costs. Until then, farmers are faced with a choice.

He said: “Farmers are at the crossroads now. “They have planted. For cucumbers, we produce completely. We are picking tomatoes. Peppers and eggplant are a few days and weeks away.

“They have to make a decision. If they can’t get more money for their products, then they will have to stop, send everyone home and lose money, or continue and lose even more.”