The closure of the Strait of Hormuz and its ripple effects are not just a global energy and economic shock. As Yvette Cooper, Britain’s foreign secretary, said in May: ‘The world is sleepwalking into a global food crisis. We cannot risk tens of millions of people going hungry because one country has hijacked an international shipping lane.’
Just as important, though not so widely broadcast, is that this food crisis is on course to become the fifth in less than 20 years. The food and fuel crisis of 2007/8 exposed the vulnerability of global food systems to rising energy prices, financial and commodity market volatility and export restrictions. The 2011 food price spike demonstrated how weather shocks and trade restrictions could fuel political instability, as waves of ‘Arab Spring’ protests swept across North Africa and the Middle East. The Covid pandemic in 2020 revealed the fragility of global logistics and supply chains, while Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 exposed the dangers of concentrated grain and fertilizer markets.
Now, in 2026, the crisis around Iran and the disruption to the strait threatens to combine many of these risks: energy disruption, fertilizer shortages, shipping instability, inflation, investor uncertainty, international aid retrenchment and geopolitical fragmentation.
Billions of meals under threat
The danger today is no longer any single disruption, but the convergence of several stresses in a deeply interconnected system. The stakes are extraordinarily high. If the current disruption continues, it has been claimed that as many as 10 billion meals a week could effectively disappear from the global food system. Meanwhile, the UN’s World Food Programme estimates an additional 45 million people could face acute hunger because of the Persian Gulf crisis.
More concerning still is that, despite the mega-shocks of recent years, the international community has failed to tackle the roots of global food insecurity. Urgent action is required. Here is where policymakers must start. The Strait of Hormuz sits at the centre of this new risk landscape. Roughly 20 per cent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas passes through the strait, alongside a third of seaborne fertilizer supplies. This means prolonged disruption would destabilize the foundations of modern food production.
The timing of these shocks makes the situation particularly dangerous. The first phase is immediate: higher fuel and transport costs. The second phase emerges over the following months as fertilizer scarcity affects planting decisions. The third phase arrives with the next harvest cycle, when reduced yields tighten supplies and push prices even higher. The result is not a short-lived shock but a cascading food inflation cycle over the next year.
The agricultural industry is already experiencing the first phase. Fuel powers tractors, irrigation systems, processing plants, refrigeration, trucking networks and shipping routes. Rising oil and gas prices therefore feed into food inflation, and within weeks, consumers are already seeing higher prices for staples. In import-dependent economies struggling with debt, the inflationary transmission is often severe.
Recent data shows food inflation exceeding 100 per cent in Iran, while countries such as Turkey and Argentina continue to record rates above 30 per cent. Several lower- and middle-income countries, including Malawi, Lebanon, Nigeria and Angola, are experiencing persistent double-digit food inflation driven by a combination of currency depreciation, conflict, import dependence, rising transport and energy costs, and broader macroeconomic instability. These pressures matter because in many poorer economies households already spend 40 to 60 per cent of their disposable income on food. Even relatively modest increases can rapidly translate into hunger, debt and social distress.
The more dangerous effects are slower. The Gulf region is central to global fertilizer production, particularly nitrogen-based fertilizers dependent on natural gas. Fertilizer disruptions create delayed production shocks that emerge over planting cycles.
In northern Nigeria for example, fertilizer prices have already risen beyond the reach of many small farmers, forcing some to reduce application rates despite fears of weaker harvests later this year. In parts of Pakistan, farmers are delaying planting decisions because fuel and fertilizer costs have become too uncertain.
Highly concentrated staple crops
The situation is compounded by defensive policy responses elsewhere. China, responsible for roughly a quarter of global fertilizer output, has already cut exports to protect domestic supply and prices. Similar patterns emerged during previous food crises, when governments prioritized national food security over global market stability.
Structural weaknesses in global food markets make these vulnerabilities more dangerous. Trade and reserves for the world’s staple crops are concentrated among a small number of countries. According to US Department of Agriculture estimates, just seven exporters account for nearly 84 per cent of global wheat exports, while six countries control more than 92 per cent of global corn exports.
These concentrations extend beyond trade. China dominates global wheat, corn and rice stocks, while China and India together hold the overwhelming majority of global rice reserves. In several major commodities, roughly 70 to 90 per cent of global stocks are concentrated among fewer than five countries. This matters because reserves that appear large in aggregate are often not fully available to world markets during crises, as governments prioritize domestic stability over global supply. Rising temperatures, droughts, floods, water stress and increasingly volatile weather patterns – such as the return of El Niño this year – are a multiplier throughout this process.
A system stretched
As these pressures mount, global humanitarian assistance is under immense strain. According to OECD preliminary data, official development assistance from major donor countries fell by more than 23 per cent in 2025 alone, the sharpest decline ever recorded. This means that the World Food Programme this year expects to assist 60 million people in donor contributions of about $6 billion, down from assisting 160 million on more than $14 billion in 2022.
The troubling reality is that the international community has had several opportunities to build resilience after previous shocks, yet progress has been limited. Early warning systems improved after previous crises, but the deeper structural vulnerabilities remained largely untouched. Supply chains became more optimized but less resilient. Humanitarian financing remained dependent on short-term political cycles. Today, that system has become too fragile to absorb recurrent shocks.
The last meeting of G7 finance ministers and central bank governors in Paris in May acknowledged the scale of the food and energy crisis triggered by Hormuz. Ministers emphasized the need to preserve open trade, avoid export restrictions, diversify supply chains and support coordinated international responses.