Ormuz isn't just about oil anymore. Fertilisers are expensive, and everyone has to eat.

The Ormuz Strait has been associated mainly with oil and oil tankers for years. In the meantime, it is becoming more and more apparent that the trade in nitrogen fertilisers, which have a direct impact on global food security, can be equally dangerous.

Without gas there are no fertilizers, without fertilizers there are no crops

What we have recently described as a risk hidden behind the crisis in the Ormuz Strait beginstake real shape. At the time, we pointed out that the world is primarily looking at oil, while much quieter, but a more dangerous problem may concern nitrogen fertilisers and food safety.

Today this scenario ceases to be just a warning.

In the media, an analysis is increasingly made, which shows the scale of the problem. Almost half of the world's population is indirectly "fed" with synthetic nitrogen. About a third of world urea trade passes through the Ormuz Strait, making it one of the key points for the global nitrogen fertiliser market. If this route is blocked or becomes too risky for shipping, the problem does not end with tankers and fuel prices. It hits something much more basic – food production.

We all have to eat. Me, you, dear reader, people of Europe, India, Bangladesh and Africa. Therefore, the crisis in Ormuz is not a distant history from the Middle East. It is an element of the chain that can come back to us at the prices of bread, rice, corn, feed and food products.

Without gas there are no fertilizers, without fertilizers there are no crops

And that's where we get to the bottom of the problem. The price of nitrogen fertilisers is natural gas, without which there is no mass production of ammonia and urea. It is nitrogen fertilisers that largely determine the size and quality of the crops. As the risk of shipping through Ormuz increases, the stakes cease to beoil price only. Food production costs are increasingly at stake.

Modern food is largely dependent on natural gas. It's from him, thanks to the Haber-Bosch process, ammonia is formed, followed by nitrogen fertilizers. Gas accounts for an essential part of the production costs. So if the Persian Gulf, which is one of the most important sources of fertilizers and raw materials used for their production, loses its freedom of navigation, it is not only the energy markets that are affected. The Strait of Ormuz becomes one of the key points that also affect global securityfood.

The market is starting to value it. According to India, the largest urea importer in the world contracted 2.5 million tons of fertilizer at a price of up to $1,136 per tonne. Before the war, there was talk of a level of about $500. It's a leap that can't be ignored. If there are interruptions in Qatar and Iran, the picture becomes even more serious.

A Forgotten Link to Global Food Security

The most worrying, however, is that for years the world focused primarily on the oil market. States created strategic reserves and assumed that, in the event of a crisis, some supplies could be supplemented from other directions. In the case of Ormuz, however, the problem is deeper, because for this route there is no alternative. In the case of similar fertilizers, there is virtually no safety cushion. The urea shows, on the other hand, that the risk to global food security accumulates in a place far less visible than the fuel market.

Therefore, the current peace on the cereals market can be misleading. Wheat, corn or rice need not react immediately, because agriculture works late. First, fertilizers are expensive, then the cost of cultivation increases, and only in time can the effects be seen in the size and quality of yields and food prices. Only then can it be seen the effects of production costs, size and quality of yields, andfood prices.

This bill doesn't appear at a gas station right away. Appears later — in the field, in the grain warehouses and finally on the store shelves.

And that is where the energy crisis begins to turn into a food crisis.

The Ormuz Strait has been described for years mainly as an oil trail. Today it is more and more clear that it is also one of the most important points for the worldtrade in fertilisers. Europe and part of the world have recently faced a similar problem after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when gas and fertiliser prices hit agriculture. Can this scenario happen again in a few months, this time due to the disturbance in the Ormuz Strait?