SALEM, Ohio — The United States’ war on Iran is being felt back home as farmers prep for spring planting, according to farmers who spoke during an American Farm Bureau Federation press briefing on March 9.
Tensions in the Middle East, triggered by U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran, have halted maritime traffic in critical waterways, causing global supply chain disruptions in the fertilizer and fuel industry.
Now, farmers who have already been struggling financially, in what the Farm Bureau called a “generational decline in farm income,” are being hit even harder by skyrocketing fertilizer costs and limited availability during a critical period.
“These are trying times, and what we are going through now on fertilizer and nitrogen was totally unexpected,” said Harry Ott, a row crop farmer and president of the South Carolina Farm Bureau, during the press call.
“Nobody’s balance sheets had room to make the adjustment for these increased costs and still have any chance of making a profit. That’s the disappointing prospect that we in agriculture are looking at: we’re being asked to grow a crop with hardly any chance of making a profit.”
Global impacts
The AFBF sent a letter to the White House on March 9, urging President Donald Trump to take action to address this critical situation.
Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall asked the president to use the U.S. Navy to provide and maintain fertilizer shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, work with international partners to maintain open shipping lanes to reduce delays, exercise presidential power to temporarily suspend countervailing duties on imported fertilizer products to moderate price increases and more.
“We are deeply concerned that failure to act could lead to disruptions to the food supply chain not seen since 2022 when food price inflation reached 40- year highs,” Duvall in the letter.
The U.S. relies on both domestic production and imports of fertilizer components, which rely heavily on natural gas as a key feedstock. But the global nature of the fertilizer market makes it sensitive to regional disruptions.
About 20% of the global supply of petroleum liquids flows through the Strait of Hormuz, located at the mouth of the Persian Gulf between Iran and the United Arab Emirates, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
The Middle East also accounts for roughly 49% of global urea exports — a nitrogen-based fertilizer — and about 30% of ammonia exports, which all run through the Strait of Hormuz.
The war on Iran began on Feb. 28 when the U.S. and Israel launched a missile strike on Iran, killing the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
President Donald Trump said his objectives for the strike were to destroy Iran’s naval and missile capabilities, as well as prevent the country from getting a nuclear weapon.
What followed were more missile strikes, with Iran retaliating by hitting Israel and Arab states, and the U.S. and Israel continuing their assault on the country. Iran halted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz on March 3, threatening to attack any ships that pass through.
Crude oil prices jumped to $119.50 per barrel on March 9, the highest level since the summer after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Spring planting stress
About half of fertilizer applications for corn are done in the spring, as well as 42% for wheat, according to Faith Parum, an economist for AFBF. Yet the majority of farmers are facing delays in obtaining fertilizers, in addition to higher prices, as the spring planting season approaches.
Ott said he called his fertilizer distributor last week to get a price estimate and a delivery, but the company said they would not deliver or quote fertilizer prices until the war plays out.
“Before any of this happened, we were already at a break-even or lose proposition on most row crops in South Carolina,” Ott said, adding that many farmers delayed buying fertilizer because of an already high-cost farm economy. Now, prices are even worse.
One farmer in South Dakota told John Newton, vice president of public policy and economic analysis for AFBF, that he had 60% of his fertilizer ordered before the war. When he put in his next order, the cost was about $200 per ton higher, increasing his fertilizer bill by nearly $20,000.
“This is real money. These are real price increases that have real effects on farmers and our food security,” Newton said.
Farmers in warmer regions are faced with the most urgency; grain crops are planted later in the Midwest, typically starting in April. But even if shipments were to commence immediately, Newton said some farmers are already past the window of applying necessary fertilizer applications.
“Once we’re able to see that maritime traffic resume, it’s still 30 days before that product reaches the United States,” he said.
Farmers could make reductions or shifts in their planned planting acreage or have lower yields, “which affects our nation’s food security and the affordability of essential goods,” according to the farm bureau.
(Liz Partsch can be reached at epartsch@farmanddairy.com or 330-337-3419.)
