The potential relief that was expected after the crash didn’t last through the weekend. With tensions due to the regime’s refusal to negotiate, which were considerably raised by the United States Navy, navigation in the region was once again compromised.
But, even if the passage was actually open, the consequences of the conflict in the Middle East have already left their mark on the international fertilizer market. Today, the full resumption of supply and the re-stabilization of prices face severe structural and logistical obstacles, and the bill for this delay will inevitably reach consumer food inflation.
The affected area in the Middle East is responsible for the passage of around 20% of all fertilizer sold in the world, and Brazil imports around 85% of all the fertilizer it consumes, placing the country’s biggest driver of development, agribusiness, in vulnerability in relation to geopolitical tensions.
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Resumption of logistics will take time
Even when the crossing is definitively reopened, the response time from foreign trade does not operate at the same speed as political announcements. The process of resuming supply in the global fertilizer market depends on complex logistics chains.
Agribusiness specialist Marcello Brito, academic director of FDC Agroambiental, explains that shipowners should not release blocked ships until they are “absolutely certain that there is no risk”. In addition to the complexity of removing vessels that are already loaded in the conflict region, it is necessary to wait for the arrival and loading of new ships.
“It’s not like online app purchases, which arrive the next day. The producer in Roraima has to order, the ship has to leave the Middle East with the product, arrive in Santos or Paranaguá, pick up the truck… it’s a complex logistics that takes months to happen”, he says. For him, there is no expectation of normalization of normal supply flows in the short term.
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This logistical bottleneck is also highlighted by Andréa Angelo, inflation strategist at Warren Investimentos. She states that, although Brazil has the capacity to seek other markets — as occurred at the beginning of the war in Ukraine — this does not solve the immediate problem. “The possibility of replacing suppliers exists, but is limited in the short term. The global fertilizer market depends on complex logistics chains. Therefore, redirecting purchases can take time, he assesses.
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Why does Brazil import fertilizer from the Middle East?
The Middle East’s leading role in the global supply of fertilizers — especially nitrogen fertilizers, such as urea — is due to the abundance and low cost of its main raw material: natural gas.
Through industrial reactions, natural gas molecules are broken down to extract hydrogen, which is then combined under high pressure with nitrogen taken from the atmospheric air itself to synthesize ammonia, which will serve as the basis for manufacturing solid urea.
As the countries in the region are home to the largest and most accessible natural gas reserves on the planet, they are able to dominate this petrochemical chain and produce these inputs on a large scale and at low cost.
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Destruction of infrastructure
In addition to the logistical node, there is a physical and structural problem, which is the destruction of factories, which were bombed.
Felippe Serigati, coordinator of the Professional Master’s Degree in Agribusiness at FGVAgro, states that the reopening of the strait will not return prices to the same level as in February. “Why not? Because there is loot from this war. Several installations, oil, gas and distribution production units are damaged or were simply destroyed”, explains Serigati.
The professor cites the impact on the largest natural gas deposit on the planet, located in the Persian Gulf, divided between the territorial waters of Iran and Qatar. “Reconstruction after this destruction will take 3 to 5 years. That reality of February is in the past. It is no longer our world”, he says.
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Bruno Fonseca, Fertilizers and Inputs analyst at Rabobank Brasil, details the direct impact of this energy matrix on Brazilian agriculture. “As natural gas is one of the main costs of producing urea, any impact on the price of natural gas impacts the price of urea, both for Brazil and other places in the world.”
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Protectionism and loss of purchasing power
The fear of global shortages is already triggering protectionist policies in other production centers. Marcello Brito warns that restrictions are no longer limited to the epicenter of the conflict. “China, anticipating that there could be a shortage, has already banned the export of some fertilizers. And other countries are doing the same thing, that is: they want to guarantee domestic supply and then export”, he states.
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Without cheap options and with supply bottlenecks, Brazilian rural producers are already feeling the impact on their pockets, even before planting.
Rabobank measures this through its Affordability Index. According to Fonseca, the indicator suffered severe deterioration, since the prices of agricultural commodities did not keep up with the dizzying increase in inputs. “Due to the fact that they consume both urea and phosphorus (mainly impacted by the conflict), corn producers have seen their purchasing power decrease significantly”, he explains.
Experts say the northern hemisphere’s agricultural harvest will be impacted as they end the winter and need to plant, seeking fertilizers. The Brazilian summer crop, which begins to be planted at the end of winter and beginning of spring (September), may also be affected, as the purchase of fertilizers for this crop takes place between March and April.
Considering the transmission of prices in international trade, the increase in prices of a crop in the northern hemisphere, for example, affects prices in Brazil as well.
“If the market projects that the harvest in the northern hemisphere will be smaller due to the costs of fertilizers, with a contraction in the planted area, or any other effect, the price of those agricultural products traded on the international market will already be higher. But it will be higher for everyone. There is no way that corn will be cheaper on one side than on the other. It will rise in Brazil too”, says Serigati.
Fertilizer production in Brazil
Brazil imports almost all of its fertilizers, 96% of which are potassium and 80% of which are hydrogen, according to Serigati.
Brazilian vulnerability motivated reactions from the federal government. In an interview with the German newspaper Der Spiegel, published on Thursday (16), President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stated that Brazil is trying not to become “dependent” on other countries in the sector.
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However, current data show an adverse scenario even for the little that the country sells: according to a survey by Warren Investimentos, Brazilian exports of fertilizers or chemical fertilizers suffered a drop of 17.25% in the quarter ending in March 2026, compared to the same period in 2025.
While the global natural gas infrastructure will take years to rebuild and shipping routes require months to readapt, the conclusion is that the expensive input used in today’s crops will be in tomorrow’s harvest, driving up food prices on supermarket shelves.
