• Analysis and Studies
• Fertilizers: the import and export crisis of 2022

In the latest months of 2022, the fertilizer industry has been undergoing a crisis that is threatening the entire food supply chain.

The invasion of Ukraine has an important role in this situation, but it is not the only reason behind this shock. In fact, the food system can start to show its vulnerability if access to minerals, regulation on the costs of raw materials and control over logistics are not guaranteed.

Firstly, the world’s largest food producers, like India and Brazil, need fertilizers to maintain their production. While it can be easy for them to obtain nitrogen, importing other minerals like phosphate and potash can get harder based on the exporter country.

Furthermore, producing fertilizers requires the use of other resources, natural gas and coal being the first ones. There are only a few countries that own these two materials, like Russia, China and Qatar. By having this advantage, these countries can impose their own conditions on the selling.

As for the last point, the transportation of raw minerals can happen between countries that are geographically very distant from each other. If a pipeline gets damaged, the entire chain stops: an example is represented by Russia, where the destructions due to war are making it hard to transport ammonia, an important mineral involved in the production of fertilizers.

In the framework outlined, farmers have to come up with new solutions to maintain their harvest, such as switching production to use less fertilizers, while international organizations legislate on the subject.

To learn more about this topic and about the numbers of the fertilizers market, check the article on The Observatory of Economic Complexity: https://oec.world/en/blog/post/bottlenecks-in-the-fertilizer-industry-are-a-threat-to-the-food-supply