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The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz have raised fuel costs and caused shortages of key fertilizers around the world, wreaking havoc on the agricultural industry. Adam Hanieh, director of the SOAS Middle East Institute at the University of London, says the effects could be felt for a long time, particularly in the Global South.

“About a third of the world’s basic fertilizers now pass through the Strait of Hormuz,” says Hanieh, who adds that the “coming food crisis” is compounded by the climate and debt crises in much of the developing world. “It’s a perfect storm.”

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Nermeen Shaikh.

We turn now to the risks of a global food and hunger crisis if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed to shipments of fertilizer, oil and natural gas. The Food and Agriculture Organization, or FAO, warned last week that a prolonged crisis in the strait could lead to a global food catastrophe due to rising oil prices and disruptions to the fertilizer supply chain. A top United Nations official echoed the FAO’s warnings Wednesday, saying that the closure of the strait was creating a crisis in the agricultural industry in Asia and Africa. According to the FAO, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Kenya and Egypt are among the countries most at risk from the strait remaining closed.

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Jorge Moreira da Silva, executive director of the U.N. Office for Project Services, said the U.N. has established a task force focused on fertilizers and supplies of raw materials in order to prevent a humanitarian crisis.

JORGE MOREIRA DA SILVA: The disruption of the Strait of Hormuz can push 45 million more people into hunger and starvation. So, clearly, we need to do something. And that’s why it’s so important that the U.N. is ready through this mechanism.

JORGE MOREIRA DA SILVA: The disruption of the Strait of Hormuz can push 45 million more people into hunger and starvation. So, clearly, we need to do something. And that’s why it’s so important that the U.N. is ready through this mechanism.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Before the war, one-third of the global fertilizer trade, as well as roughly one-quarter of crude oil and a fifth of liquefied natural gas, passed through the Strait of Hormuz, but tanker traffic has essentially come to a standstill for nearly two months.

For more, we’re joined now by Adam Hanieh, who’s been closely following this. His latest piece in the Financial Times is headlined “The coming global food crisis.” Adam Hanieh is director of the SOAS Middle East Institute at the University of London, and his most recent book is Crude Capitalism: Oil, Corporate Power, and the Making of the World Market. He joins us now from Shanghai, China.

Professor Hanieh, welcome back to Democracy Now! If you could just begin by laying out all the different factors leading to a possible global food crisis, the signs of which actually are evident already in several countries?

ADAM HANIEH: Thank you, Nermeen.

Yes, the article argues that we need to move away from just considering the Gulf as oil and gas producers and actually think very carefully about the ways that they have diversified down the value chain into things like fertilizers. As you pointed out, about a third of the world’s basic fertilizers now pass through the Strait of Hormuz. And in some of these chemicals, like urea and ammonia, the Gulf monarchies stand as some of the world’s largest producers.

So, the closure of the transport through the Strait of Hormuz has really strangled the global supply of these key fertilizer inputs. It’s not just a question of supply shortages, of course. We’re actually seeing price rises accompany this process, as well. So, we can — we see supply shortages of fertilizers, price rises of fertilizers, as well, of course, price rises of basic energy, including gas and oil, which impact very deeply farmers and agricultural systems around the world. So, this is, I think, as we’ve heard earlier the Food and Agriculture Organization warning of the impact of this, and I think it is now that this reality is actually becoming very clear.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Professor Hanieh, the piece actually begins with laying out why it is that countries have become more dependent on the fossil fuel industry for the production of food. If you could explain what the Green Revolution did and how, over the decades, it’s made fossil fuels so central to all kinds of agricultural production?

ADAM HANIEH: Yes, the Green Revolution was a enormous transformation to agricultural production that took place in the postwar period, through the 1950s and 1960s, in particular. Countries like India, Mexico and elsewhere were major epicenters of this revolution. And what it essentially did was it tied the introduction of new seed varieties to fossil fuel inputs, in particular, synthetic fertilizers, as well as pesticides, and, of course, the mechanization of farm work itself, irrigation and so forth, that depended also on these — on fuel imports, fossil fuel imports, as well — inputs, as well.

So, this kind of transformation brought with it enormous social and ecological costs, that have been documented very well by those who study the Green Revolution. But it has done something actually much more fundamental, and which is being illustrated in this current war, is that it tied our food systems to fossil fuel inputs. It really closely tied the way that we do agriculture with these basic fossil fuel chemicals, as well as energy sources. So, when we see a moment of crisis, as we do today, that’s when these links become so apparent.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And you speak specifically, in fact, in the piece about nitrogen fertilizer — oh, sorry, the most widely used of nitrogen fertilizer is urea. So, where is this produced, and where exported? And what’s happening with its production and distribution now?

ADAM HANIEH: Well, there’s — nitrogen fertilizers are very important to consider in this story, because half of the world’s food production depends upon this kind of fertilizers. We’re talking here about things like urea and ammonia. These are the essential nitrogen fertilizers. And the Gulf monarchies have become leading exporters of these fertilizers. So, Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest exporter of urea, for instance. Oman, another Gulf monarchy, is the fourth largest. So, these chemicals, these kind — these nitrogen products are no longer being shipped through the strait, through the Strait of Hormuz and from these countries. And this really does impact very dramatically the ability of countries like India, for instance, that depends very heavily. About three-quarters of India’s ammonia exports — sorry, imports, come from the Gulf region, for instance. Thirty percent of Morocco’s nitrogen inputs — ammonia imports come from the Gulf. So, these countries can become very heavily impacted when these supplies are cut.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, let’s go to what the Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N. is warning. Máximo Torero, who is the chief economist of the FAO, spoke earlier this month about how the strait’s continued closure could affect decisions made by farmers.

MÁXIMO TORERO: As we move to April and we move to May especially, then there will be decisions made by farmers. And that will imply that they will choose to move towards producing with less inputs. If the strait continues not to have mobility, it will imply that they will move to other commodities which they can fix more nitrogen, like, for example, move from wheat or maize to soybeans. And it will imply that they could allocate, because they will allocate more of these resources to biofuels. That will restrict the capacity, the amount of supply of commodities, of food, and, of course, that will start to increase prices. And you have to add to that the uncertainties. The more uncertainty we have over the next weeks, the more the transmission will move. And if that transmission keeps moving, we will have a period of higher food prices, commodity prices and higher food inflation.

MÁXIMO TORERO: As we move to April and we move to May especially, then there will be decisions made by farmers. And that will imply that they will choose to move towards producing with less inputs. If the strait continues not to have mobility, it will imply that they will move to other commodities which they can fix more nitrogen, like, for example, move from wheat or maize to soybeans. And it will imply that they could allocate, because they will allocate more of these resources to biofuels. That will restrict the capacity, the amount of supply of commodities, of food, and, of course, that will start to increase prices. And you have to add to that the uncertainties. The more uncertainty we have over the next weeks, the more the transmission will move. And if that transmission keeps moving, we will have a period of higher food prices, commodity prices and higher food inflation.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, that’s the FAO’s chief economist. Professor Hanieh, if you could comment on what he said?

ADAM HANIEH: I think it’s really important to understand this coming food crisis as an intersection of multiple crises. We are, of course, as we’ve just heard, going to see price rises in food and in fuel, but we are also experiencing at the moment the climate and debt crises in much of the Global South. So, it’s a perfect storm, if you like, of these food, fuel, climate and debt crises, that are all very deeply connected to one another. In that sense, it’s different from earlier food crises, like the 2008 or 2022, following Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine.

So, you could take a country, for instance, like Sudan. Sudan is reliant upon the Gulf for more than 50% of its fertilizers, which is — it’s actually the most reliant of any country in the world from imports from the Gulf region. And Sudan is a country suffering, of course, from three years of civil war. Indeed, many of the actors involved in this civil war are the Gulf monarchies themselves, particularly Saudi Arabia and the UAE. So it’s a country that’s enduring famine across major parts of its territory. About 40%, according to the World Food Programme, of Sudan’s population are currently experiencing famine conditions, about 19 million people. So, acute levels of food insecurity in Sudan, and it’s also experiencing massive levels of displacement. About one in three people are being displaced. So, we overlay this kind of conflict crisis alongside the questions of food, fuel and debt, and the inability, of course, of humanitarian assistance to get into Sudan now, because that has also been interrupted as a result of this war against Iran, we really see this perfect storm affecting many countries surrounding the Middle East.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Professor Hanieh, we’ll go back in a second to the issue of debt for many countries in the developing world, which you also talk about in your piece. But another point you make is, to return to the centrality of the Gulf countries, that the UAE now ranks as among the top five reexport hubs in the world. So, if you could explain what this means for the distribution of food around the world? And talk also about Dubai’s Jebel Ali port, which is the world’s largest human-made harbor, as you point out.

ADAM HANIEH: Yes, this is another critical part of the economic transformations that have taken place in the Gulf over recent decades. The emergence of the Gulf states — in particular, the UAE, the United Arab Emirates, and, in particular, the Dubai emirate, where Jebel Ali port is located, have emerged as key logistics centers globally. This means, of course, ports, as well as shipping infrastructure, air corridors, connected to economic zones, free zones, these kinds of logistics networks, which have now become deeply centered in the region.

So, when we talk about Dubai as one of the top five reexporters, what that means is that goods are imported into Dubai and then exported elsewhere. So, Dubai and other Gulf states, but, in particular, Jebel Ali port, supplies a lot of the goods that are consumed not just in the Middle East, but also in surrounding areas, like in the African continent and South Asia, where goods come into Dubai and then are reexported there, including, of course, food.

So, this adds another dimension to the emerging crisis, because with those logistics corridors no longer operating, it makes it very difficult for countries to actually import their food through these logistics networks. One striking fact is that China, for instance, exports about 60 — about 60% of China’s exports to Europe and Africa pass through Dubai, pass through the UAE. So, that shows its centrality to global trade. And, of course, one of the reasons that the emirate Dubai has become this epicenter of global trade is because of its role in the distribution of food.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Professor Hanieh, to talk about another issue that you raise that is exacerbating this crisis, which is that the developing world is already deeply debt distressed. UNCTAD, or the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development, has said developing countries paid a record $921 billion only in interest payments in 2024. If you could talk about the implications of this?

ADAM HANIEH: This is a hugely important factor to consider. It’s been described as the worst debt crisis on record, worse than the so-called lost decade of the 1980s. What this concerns, of course, as you’ve just stated, is that countries are paying interest servicing their debt, but still taking on new debt on top of that. So, what this means is that countries are no longer able to afford or to adequately pay for basic services, like health, education or other kinds of social infrastructure. Currently, the number of countries in the Global South that are paying more to their external creditors, to their lenders, in debt servicing than they receive in fresh loans has doubled over the last decade, which really shows the striking situation that many countries face today. About 3.4 billion people in the world are paying more on interest payments on their debt than they are on health or education — again, a striking figure that really shows the situation that countries are coming into, facing this looming crisis. So, I really think, when we think about the potential impact of this war against Iran, we need to think about the situation that countries are already in, the multiple crises that they’re facing, in order to understand what the impact of these kinds of trade shortages might be.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And finally, Professor Hanieh, before we end, if you could say, even if the fighting were to stop today and the strait is reopened, is it already too late to avert a global food crisis?

ADAM HANIEH: Well, I think we’re getting very close to that point. The question of — I mean, we look at kind of the predictions around energy prices moving forward, and also food prices, food prices. Earlier on, a few weeks ago, the Food and Agriculture Organization estimated, for the first half of 2026, that prices of fertilizers would be 20% — up to 20% higher. And this is now — now the war has been much prolonged since that estimate was made. So, I think the kind of knock-on effects that we will see, we’re already seeing fertilizer shipments being diverted to those wealthier countries that can pay. And it does mean, I think, that price rises and food inflation are certainly on the cards for the remainder of the year.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Professor Hanieh, thank you so much for joining us, director of the SOAS Middle East Institute at the University of London. His most recent book is Crude Capitalism: Oil, Corporate Power, and the Making of the World Market. We’ll link to your new piece in the Financial Times, “The coming global food crisis.”

Coming up, are officials and staffers in the Trump administration directly profiting from the war by placing well-timed bets on prediction markets just before President Trump announces major developments in the war? Stay with us.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Michael Hurley, performing “Let Me Be Your Junebug.”

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Nermeen Shaikh is a broadcast news producer and weekly co-host at Democracy Now! in New York City. She worked in research and nongovernmental organizations before joining Democracy Now! She has a masters of philosophy from Cambridge University and is the author of The Present as History: Critical Perspectives on Global Power (Columbia University Press).

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