War-Induced Rise in Fertilizer Costs Expected to Drive Up Food Prices Worldwide

Laborers load sacks of fertilizer onto a truck at a railway station on the outskirts of Amritsar, India, on May 1, 2020. Narinder Nanu/AFP via Getty Images

The cost of fertilizer has risen significantly since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and those rising costs are expected to result in higher grocery bills and further food price inflation.

Russia, in large part because of its massive size and geographic diversity, is unparalleled as an exporter of numerous crop nutrients. Russia produces 25 percent of the European supply of key fertilizer components nitrogen, potash, and phosphate, and any disruption to these exports could significantly damage food production worldwide.

While the United States and NATO have attempted to cripple Russia’s economy with economic sanctions, these sanctions are bound to have ripple effects on the global economy that will contribute to the rising inflation of necessities such as fuel and food.

While much has been written about Russia’s natural gas exports to Europe, a potentially overlooked consequence of the sanctions is their effect on fertilizer prices, which could result in significantly higher food prices throughout the world.

On March 4, the Russian minister of trade and industry recommended that the country’s fertilizer producers halt exports, citing uncertainty as to whether these exports would reach foreign markets.

Even before the invasion, fertilizer prices had risen starkly, largely because of the rising gas costs necessary to ship fertilizers across countries and continents. In New Orleans, the price of popular nitrogen fertilizer urea rose by 29 percent to $705 per short ton, setting a record for single-day price inflation in the 45-year history of the gauge. At the market opening on March 7, prices had further soared to $850 per short ton, and the trend shows little sign of abating as Russian fertilizer exports continue to be sorely missed from global markets.

A file image of U.S. farmer Roger Murphy putting fertilizer in the ground near Dwight, Ill. on April 23, 2020. Scott Olson/Getty Images

The urgency of addressing the likely fertilizer scarcity issue has prompted some experts to envision creative—and, for many, unappetizing—replacements.

In recent years, three states have approved legislation to legalize natural organic reduction, better known as “human composting,” a novel and controversial means of disposing of human cadavers by dissolving them in water to be used as fertilizer. For proponents of the idea, it’s an ecologically sound way to return a human body to the environment. For critics, it’s a strange and dehumanizing disrespect to the deceased.

Human composting is still far from becoming a significant factor in the fertilizer industry, and such processes are remote from the immediate ramifications of the Russian invasion. However, if fertilizer prices remain geopolitically fraught as a result of protracted conflict in Eastern Europe, it’s only natural that alternative sources of fertilizer may become more attractive.

In the near future, the consequences will manifest in the form of rising food prices—a burden which will spare none, affecting one of the most essential needs for human life. For consumers, the absence of Russian fertilizer could hit close to home, causing families to suffer as they spend an increasing share of their income on groceries.