Easing tensions in the Strait of Hormuz — if it should ever actually happen — should bring fertilizer prices down. But not anytime soon. It could be years before that actually occurs. That’s because today’s fertilizer price shocks resulted from not one, but two wars, in or near the heart of global fertilizer production.
Four years ago, the Russia-Ukraine war burst the global fertilizer pipeline as key production facilities were destroyed. This led to sanctions and European energy shifts, causing fertilizer supplies to shrink and prices to spike, explained Ed Thomas, vice president of government affairs at The Fertilizer Institute.
With supplies already tight going into 2026, U.S. fertilizer prices got another shock in February when the United States and Israel began a joint military mission to target Iran. By midyear, the conflict had halted shipments from global fertilizer leaders Saudi Arabia, Iran, United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
Given that some 24% of all global ammonia trade moves through the Strait of Hormuz , prices jumped nearly 40% in a matter of weeks.
“Right now, we are in a very tight supply,” Thomas said. “There’s a lot of geopolitical conditions really impacting that supply, including the Strait of Hormuz. A lot of liquid natural gas, sulfur, urea and other fertilizers are produced north of the strait.”
So, what’s next for fertilizer? Start checking headlines around these five catalysts for clues in price movement:
1. Sulfur shortage. Sulfur is extracted as a byproduct of petroleum and natural gas refining. It’s not just a macronutrient vital to plant growth. Most sulfur is turned into sulfuric acid, the most widely used chemical in the world, of which 60% is used to produce phosphate fertilizer.
About 50% of global sulfur exports originate from the Middle East, while North America accounts for 20%, Thomas said.
China and Morocco are the leading sulfur importers, along with Indonesia, India and Brazil. Most of these countries need sulfur for chemical production and to feed domestic fetilizer plants.
As a result, “the price of sulfur has gone through the roof,” Thomas said. “A few years ago, sulfur was trading for $100 to $200 per ton; now it’s trading at $1,300 per ton. Markets are going crazy. Countries are putting export restrictions on all their sulfur and sulfuric acid.
“We get about 57% of our sulfur from north of the strait,” he continued. “Every phosphate manufacturer in the world has to have sulfur, and there is not enough. Hopefully, with the strait opening up, we just don’t know if it’s going to remain open or destabilize. Even if it remains open, it will take a year and a half to two years to get that fertilizer market to stabilize and get things back to normal.”
2. Export restrictions. When prices go up or supplies run short, countries do what they can to limit losses.
“Lots of countries are banning exports, causing more supply shortages,” Thomas said.
In March, China suspended sulfuric acid exports indefinitely. China’s end-of-2025 announcement that it would not export MAP, DAP and TSP (triple-super phosphate) until at least August is looking increasingly likely to last longer into the year. Russia banned sulfur export approvals last November with an end date set for the end of 2026. Turkey, Iran, Egypt and Kazakhstan all have imposed bans or new restrictions.
3. Ammonia troubles. Conflict, liquid natural gas shortages and infrastructure attacks continue to disrupt ammonia production across key global regions, Thomas said.
In the Middle East, 31 ammonia plants were directly impacted or shuttered by the recent U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran.
In Russia, 39 ammonia plants have been damaged by drone attacks linked to the Ukraine war.
And in South Asia, 41 ammonia plants in the major ammonia producing and consuming countries of India, Bangladesh and Pakistan have been curtailed or shuttered because of constrained liquid natural gas supplies.
4. Russia’s struggles. “Russian production-capacity destruction continues, leading to more and more trade restrictions and big purchases by big companies,” Thomas said. “All of Russia’s urea assets have been impacted by drone strikes in one way or another at this point in the conflict.”
Even so, Russia continues to play a dominant role in global trade. It accounts for 18% of global urea exports, 15% of global processed phosphates exports and 19% of global potash exports.
Meanwhile, U.S. farmers are increasingly beholden to Russia. Russia’s market share in U.S. nitrogen imports has grown from 13% in 2022 to 18% in 2024 to 25% in 2026, predominantly led by urea.
5. Phosphorus shortfall. This is the big one — a problem that could linger even if all conflicts are settled overnight. Phosphate fertilizer prices and availability are being squeezed by shrinking U.S. production. Between 2019 and 2026, U.S. production of phosphorus dropped about 100,000 short tons.
What happens next?
Prices should stabilize if and when the Strait of Hormuz reopens without interruption, but even then, it will take time, Thomas said. It will also take time to bring production facilities back on line and assess facility damage.
“The length of the fertilizer affordability challenge will be longer than the strait closure,” Thomas predicted.
USDA recently announced a $500 million initiative to boost domestic fertilizer manufacturing, but results could take years.
“It’s encouraging USDA is going to provide mechanisms to increase domestic supply of fertilizer,” Thomas said. “The main way we will be able to increase domestic supply is with new ammonia plants and putting urea production facilities alongside those ammonia plants, because that’s where we’re really short; we import 40% to 50% of urea needs from other countries.
“Unfortunately, phosphate and potash are where God put them. They are not from ocean deposits,” he added. “The U.S. does have some potash, but it’s really deep so it’s not economical to get at those reserves.”
The takeaway? Until domestic supplies ramp up, U.S. crop farmers will need to be as efficient as possible with fertilizer dollars, as global turmoil continues. Soil-test fields, apply phosphate only where it pays, and consider buying the price dips whenever possible. Knowing the nutrient profile already in your field can save you money when fertilizer markets are tight and prices are high.
Drop in U.S. phosphate production pinches supply
The most devastating fertilizer shortfall for U.S. farmers has nothing to do with wars, shipping disruption or geopolitical tension. The challenge lies in domestic production.
“Domestic phosphorus is running short,” said Ed Thomas, vice president of government affairs at The Fertilizer Institute. As a result, the U.S. is forced to rely more heavily on imports. “If I had any one message to growers, it’s we have a supply issue with phosphate.”
From 2019 to 2026, the U.S. lost about 10% a year in phosphate production from Florida facilities. This happened not because they are not mining the same amount of rock, but because the quality of rock has declined, Thomas explained.
“They mine the same amount of rock but get less fertilizer. So, from 2019 to 2026, we’ve gotten about 100,000 short tons less production,” he said.
That has forced the U.S. to import more phosphate to meet demand, and when domestic and foreign supplies tighten, farmers feel it in higher prices and less predictable availability at local suppliers.
Meanwhile, global demand for phosphate is climbing, which puts upward pressure on prices. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, world consumption of P2O5 in fertilizers jumped from 47.1 million tons in 2024 to 47.8 million tons in 2025, and projections show it hitting 51.5 million tons by 2029. Asia and South America drive that growth, meaning U.S. farmers are competing globally for phosphate supplies.
When China, Morocco and Russia — the world’s top producers — control the majority of global output, any disruption in their production or export policies can ripple through to farmers’ fertilizer bills.
A new Idaho phosphate mine approved in October offers some long-term hope, but it won’t help farmers this year or next. In the meantime, tight domestic production and rising global demand mean phosphate fertilizer costs are likely to stay elevated.
The shortfall was made worse in 2021 when Mosaic Co. successfully petitioned the U.S. Department of Commerce to place countervailing duties near 20% on Moroccan imports. Research from the Agricultural and Food Policy Center at Texas A&M University show these tariffs spiked DAP prices by roughly 28.6% to 34%, costing U.S. producers an extra $6.9 billion from 2021 through 2025.
President Donald Trump recently suspended the duties, allowing Morocco’s state-owned phosphate fertilizer company OCP to resume fertilizer shipments into the U.S. market without heavy tariff penalties.
Greater availability from a major global exporter should help lower near-term input costs. That said, all global phosphate producers — including Morocco, which imports all its sulfur required to produce fertilizers — are struggling to source sulfur and are grappling with the extraordinary price necessary to obtain limited supplies.
Urea costs climb despite adequate supplies
U.S. farmers are bracing for another round of fertilizer price increases as escalating conflict in the Middle East threatens critical supply routes, though experts say U.S. supplies remain adequate despite the global disruption.
The Middle East accounts for about 1.5 million tons of urea exports per month from countries including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Oman and Iran. That supply has effectively dried up as the conflict drags on toward harvest.
“That much urea just dries up from the system and is not available,” explained Deepika Thapliyal, deputy managing editor of the fertilizer team at Independent Commodity Intelligence Services. “Before this conflict, the Middle East has actually been a very reliable source of supply.”
For U.S. farmers, however, urea in the supply chain can get them through — for now. Thapliyal said U.S. farmers face less severe supply concerns than their counterparts in other regions.
“For the U.S. farmer, they are actually pretty well placed compared to farmers in other countries because the U.S. does not have any shortage of fertilizer,” Thapliyal said. “There’s enough product already in the system, and the U.S. also buys most of its urea from Russia, so those shipments are still continuing.”
Fertilizer markets showed signs of stabilizing around May when demand collapsed under the weight of unaffordable costs.
“Prices were so expensive that demand just completely stopped,” Thapliyal said. “Farmers or even end users could just not afford to buy at such high prices because grain prices did not go up in the same way.”
By early July, prices had approached 2024 levels, and industry observers expected demand to recover in late summer. Then resumed hostilities later in July changed the course of those prices — just one more chapter in the fertilizer saga. Confidence in shipping and supply has alternately risen and waned as tensions ease, ceasefires are tried, and then the bombing begins again.
“On the pricing front, the cost pressure will be upward, and it will take some time for things to settle, or we will continue to see very volatile phases,” Thapliyal explained. “The U.S. has to compete with more buyers now, and they will all look at the same origins to get their product because one big origin, the Middle East, is now out of the picture for some time.”
So, who has fertilizer?
With Middle Eastern supplies constrained, buyers are turning to alternative sources. Egypt, Algeria, Nigeria and Russia have seen increased demand, driving up their prices. China’s return to the export market is providing some relief.
“We have just more than 3 million tons of Chinese urea available for export over the next three months, and maybe that volume will go up to 4.5 [million] to 5 million tons by the end of this year,” Thapliyal said. “When this Chinese supply comes into the market, that’s obviously going to cushion or cap any kind of price increase that happens.”
Purchasing strategies in uncertain times
For farmers navigating this volatility, Thapliyal suggested a measured approach based on what buyers are currently doing.
“They purchase when they need tons and they keep it; they don’t buy big volumes,” she said. “They try to buy limited volumes and then they try to average their purchases so that in such a volatile environment, they can make the most of the whole situation.”
Industry observers are adjusting their expectations for Middle Eastern fertilizer trade.
“Buyers and traders are slowly digesting the fact that shipping from the Middle East is never going to be the same,” Thapliyal said. “It is going to always now come with its challenges, and the costs are going to be significantly higher than what they were before the conflict began. I don’t think anyone’s expecting it to go back to 100%, at least not in the next few years.”
As the situation continues to evolve, farmers face the prospect of sustained volatility in fertilizer markets, with prices likely to fluctuate in waves as the conflict progresses.