War in Iran Is Creating a Fertilizer Crisis Like Never Before

March 11, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

The Worst Possible Time for a Fertilizer Crisis

For much of human history, generals avoided spring and fall campaigns because soldiers were also farmers and disrupting the food supply was self-defeating. As Odd Lots host Joe Wiesenthal notes, "we've clearly forgotten much of human history" — the US-Israeli war against Iran is hitting global fertilizer markets at precisely the moment when northern hemisphere farmers are preparing for spring planting. Urea prices have already shot up 25% in the past week alone.

What Urea Is and Why It Matters

Urea is the most common form of nitrogen fertilizer, and it sits at the center of a paradox that analyst Alexis Maxwell of Bloomberg Intelligence calls "one of the greatest paradoxes of humanity." The Haber-Bosch process that produces nitrogen fertilizer is responsible for roughly half the people alive today — without conventional fertilizers, the earth could only support about 4 billion people, not the current 7 billion-plus. Yet the same industrial process generates a product that can be weaponized.

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What you'll learn

1 (02:25) **Why the War in Iran Hits Fertilizer at the Worst Possible Time** - Hosts Tracy Alloway and Joe Weisenthal introduce the episode's central paradox: a war disrupting fertilizer supply just as the Northern Hemisphere begins spring planting.
2 (05:11) **What Is Urea and Why It Matters** - Guest Alexis Maxwell (Bloomberg Intelligence) explains urea, the most common nitrogen fertilizer, and its production process.
3 (08:13) **Why Fertilizer Plants Are Co-Located with Natural Gas** - The economics of shipping urea vs. natural gas, and the seasonal demand problem.
4 (09:44) **The Scale of the Middle East Fertilizer Crisis** - 45% of the world's tradable urea and 20% of ammonia comes from the Persian Gulf region.
5 (12:44) **Where Middle Eastern Urea Goes and the Morocco Connection** - Seasonal shipping patterns and the role of Moroccan phosphate.
6 (16:36) **The 2022 Fertilizer Price Spike and Its Aftermath** - How two supply-side shocks (China's export ban and Russia's invasion) created a structural shift.
7 (19:57) **What Farmers Can Do When Fertilizer Costs Spike** - Four options: reduce application rates, switch crops (e.g., corn to soybeans), switch nitrogen products, or don't plant at all.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

We all know that the war with Iran has sent oil prices spiking. But it’s also pushing up the cost of all sorts of chemicals, including fertilizers like urea, ammonia and other nitrogen products that are essential for food production. This is all happening at the worst possible time — just before the spring planting season, when fertilizer is most needed. And while farmers have seen higher spot prices for things like urea before, notably back in 2022, there are already signs that this crisis might be worse. So how is fertilizer actually made? And what do higher fertilizer costs mean for farmers and for food prices? On this episode we speak with Alexis Maxwell, senior analyst on Bloomberg Intelligence's agriculture team.

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