--- title: "Far from Hormuz, the Iran war reaches Africa through the fertiliser sack" description: "At a Doha investment forum, a UN trade official and African ministers warn that fuel and fertiliser costs could hit next year’s harvests" author: "Jan Sokol" published: 2026-10-26T21:42:18Z modified: 2026-10-27T00:23:23Z url: https://rews.cc/a/far-from-hormuz-the-iran-war-reaches-africa-through-the-fert-a40519 language: en tags: ["war", "economy", "food", "iran", "infrastructure", "world", "africa"] publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)" --- # Far from Hormuz, the Iran war reaches Africa through the fertiliser sack *At a Doha investment forum, a UN trade official and African ministers warn that fuel and fertiliser costs could hit next year’s harvests* By Jan Sokol · October 26, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/far-from-hormuz-the-iran-war-reaches-africa-through-the-fert-a40519 ## In brief - UNCTAD official and African ministers warned in Doha that the Iran war is raising fuel and fertiliser costs in Africa - Luz Maria de la Mora said the Hormuz crisis must be resolved “sooner rather than later” - She said fertiliser prices rose sharply, many countries cut use, and next year’s harvests could suffer - Zimbabwe’s Monica Mutsvangwa said more than 70% of Zimbabweans depend on agriculture - Ecofin: in July local urea was about $975/t in Malawi and $1,059/t in South Africa, against about $400/t globally Doha is not far from the Strait of Hormuz. This week the Qatari capital is hosting the [World Investment Forum](https://worldinvestmentforum.unctad.org/), which UN Trade and Development and Qatar are running from 25 to 27 October under the theme “Investing in the Future”. It is the kind of meeting that talks about capital flows and value chains. On Monday, though, some of the talk was about something older and simpler: what African farmers will be able to put into the soil, and what will come out of it next year. As [Urooba Jamal reported for Al Jazeera](https://aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/26/africa-food-security-under-threat-due-to-iran-war-warn-trade-officials) from the forum, trade ministers from Africa and the UN’s top trade official warned that the war is already being felt across the continent. Rising fuel and fertiliser prices, they said, threaten to push food costs up. Luz Maria de la Mora, who directs UNCTAD’s Division on International Trade and Commodities, said the crisis around the strait, a product of the United States’ and Israel’s war on Iran, has to be settled “sooner rather than later”. ## The strait and the field Before the war, according to Al Jazeera, about one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas trade passed through the strait. Tehran has since learned that its leverage depends on [the waterway staying shut](https://rews.cc/a/iran-s-leverage-over-hormuz-depends-on-the-strait-staying-sh-2a8e07). De la Mora said higher oil prices had thrown supply chains into disorder and that the effects were lasting longer than anyone expected. Wars are declared in capitals and fought at sea. Their bill tends to reach people who were never part of the argument, and it often arrives one planting season late. Fertiliser is the slow part of the damage. De la Mora said its price had climbed steeply and that many countries had used less of it as a result. That decision is made now, in the shops and the fields, but its effects only show up at harvest. Next year’s crops could suffer, she warned, and with them the amount of food available and what it costs. ## Zimbabwe Monica Mutsvangwa, Zimbabwe’s minister of women affairs, community, small and medium enterprise development, told Al Jazeera that more than 70 percent of her country’s people depend on agriculture. For them, she said, the rising price of fuel and fertiliser is a critical concern. Those are people who work the land. Few have savings, and none of them had any say over a strait thousands of kilometres to the north. A rise in diesel prices means fewer trips to market. A bag of fertiliser that costs more means a smaller dose on the same field, and the yield shrinks in proportion. ## The gap between the screen and the shop The world market has not moved in one direction. The International Food Policy Research Institute [wrote in September](https://www.ifpri.org/blog/how-are-fertilizer-markets-coping-with-the-continued-closure-of-the-strait-of-hormuz/) that prices of urea, ammonia and other nitrogen fertilisers had fallen by 25 to 45 percent since late May. It credited part of that fall to China’s decision to export more nitrogen fertiliser and part to weak seasonal demand from large importers such as Brazil. Phosphates went the other way. Prices of MAP and DAP rose by 25 to 30 percent after the strait closed, the institute said, and stayed there. Even where the benchmark has eased, the relief has not always reached the farm. [Ecofin Agency reported](https://www.ecofinagency.com/news-agriculture/1407-57382-global-fertilizer-prices-are-falling-african-farmers-aren-t-feeling-it) that global urea had come back close to its pre-war level by July, at around $400 a tonne. Local prices that month were about $975 a tonne in Malawi, $933 in Tanzania and $1,059 in South Africa. The agency blamed weak currencies, war-risk freight charges and dependence on imports. The trading screens in Geneva and Chicago show one price. A cooperative store in Lilongwe charges another, and the farmer pays that one. This is how distance works in a war economy. A tanker that never sails and an insurer who raises a premium both feed into the cost of a sack of fertiliser. So does a currency that loses value against the dollar, and the dollar is the currency fertiliser is priced in. Every step adds a little, and by the time the sack reaches an African field the price may have more than doubled. ## Waiting on the envoys The forum closes today. The question that could bring prices down will not be decided in its conference rooms. It sits with the governments now weighing [new strikes and new talks](https://rews.cc/a/centcom-has-iran-strike-options-ready-hegseth-has-them-trump-cfb7df) over Iran. The countries whose ministers came to Doha to warn about harvests are not part of those talks. They will see the result in next year’s crops.