FAO warns Hormuz closure could trigger global food price crisis affecting 45 million people

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has issued a stark warning: if the Strait of Hormuz stays closed for any sustained period, the world should brace for an agrifood shock severe enough to push an estimated 45 million additional people into hunger.

That narrow waterway between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula isn’t just an oil chokepoint. It’s also the corridor through which roughly one-third of the world’s basic fertilizers pass.

Fertilizer is the real story

About a third of global basic fertilizer shipments transit through the Strait. Without it, crop yields plummet. With expensive fertilizer, farmers either absorb the cost (unlikely for smallholders in developing nations) or pass it along to consumers.

The FAO’s modeling suggests that a prolonged disruption would generate food price inflation significant enough to tip 45 million more people into hunger.

Why this matters right now

The organization has laid out a set of immediate recommendations. First, governments should avoid imposing export restrictions on food and fertilizer. This is a lesson learned the hard way during the early months of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, when a cascade of export bans amplified price spikes far beyond what the physical supply disruption alone would have caused.

Second, the FAO is calling for enhanced market monitoring. Third, the agency wants increased financial support directed at farmers, particularly smallholders in vulnerable regions. If fertilizer prices surge, small-scale farmers who operate on razor-thin margins will simply stop using it, meaning lower yields in the next growing season and less food available months down the line.

The Global South bears the burden

The FAO specifically highlighted that vulnerable populations in the Global South would bear the heaviest impact. Countries that are net food importers and simultaneously dependent on fertilizer imports routed through the Strait of Hormuz face a double hit: rising input costs (fertilizer) and rising import bills (food).

The 2022 food price crisis that accompanied Russia’s war in Ukraine offers a useful precedent. Global food prices surged, wheat exports from the Black Sea region were disrupted, and the FAO Food Price Index hit record highs. Countries across Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia struggled with inflation that far outpaced anything experienced in Europe or North America.

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