The impact is already showing. The FAO Food Price Index, which tracks monthly changes in international food commodity prices, rose for a third consecutive month in April, driven by high energy costs and disruptions linked to the Middle East conflict. The shock will unfold in stages, the agency said: energy, then fertilizer, then seeds, then lower yields, then commodity prices and finally food inflation reaching shoppers.
Poorer countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America — where many people already struggle to afford enough food — are most exposed because they traditionally buy nitrogen fertilizer from the Middle East.
The warning lands a day after the European Commission unveiled its long-awaited fertilizer action plan, which bets on long-term measures like recycling manure and farm waste. It leaves untouched the fastest levers that could lower fertilizer costs for European farmers, like suspending tariffs on Russian and Belarusian fertilizer imports or pausing the EU’s carbon border tax.
The FAO called on governments to find alternative trade routes to bypass Hormuz, avoid imposing export restrictions and protect humanitarian food flows from any trade curbs.