While there is relief at last night’s ceasefire in the US-Israel war with Iran, today’s commentators continue to warn of ongoing uncertainty for fuel supplies and prices; but in the long run, will it be shortages of fertiliser and the knock-on effect on our food security that affect Britain the most in the economic fall-out of the war? Cutting fertiliser use has never made more sense.

Keys facts: According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, about a third of the global seaborne trade in fertilisers pass through the Strait of Hormuz(1). Essential components of fertiliser like urea and ammonia are made with energy-intensive production processes including gas. This means that, for efficiency, production tends to be clustered near low-cost gas producers, particularly around the Persian Gulf in countries like Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain the UAE and Iran. This density meant that a single Iranian strike on a Qatari facility has been reported as disrupting 1/7th of global urea production. Volatility in supply is likely to continue(2).

Fertiliser costs are surging for the second time in just 5 years after similar trade disruptions following the invasion of Ukraine caused fertiliser prices to spike to $815 per tonne in April 2022. This is more than four times the price of just over $200 per tonne in 2020(3). Arguably the situation is worse this time round as there is less spare production capacity elsewhere to fill the gap.

UK farmers – as well as those elsewhere – are rightly highlighting the risks of higher farm input costs, especially of red diesel and fertiliser, because of the Iran conflict. They are also simultaneously facing increasingly unpredictable and extreme weather events due to accelerating climate change. The deluges that put productive fields underwater in 2023/24 led to millions of pounds of government intervention to protect farmers with flooded fields.

  • punksnotdead@slrpnk.netEnglish
    2·
    18 days ago

    The average onion is about 50kcals. The average carrot is about 30 kcals. The average aubergine is about 50 kcals. Getting 200kcals out of a garden, particularly in the growing season, is not that difficult. Especially as I’m talking about a community patchwork, where people share their overabundance of squash for someone else’s potatoes.

    I have a tiny garden, and yet I’m able to make a decent dent in my grocery bills from it. Not just in calories but in cost, because I can priorities growing crops that are more expensive in the supermarkets. Chard for example is £2.55 for a small bag in Tesco. I can grow a bags worth every day for weeks in summer. Without the plastic, without the refrigeration, without the labour and fuel of packing, transporting, shelving, and accounting.

    Farming has its place, but it shouldn’t be the only source of our food. Especially when it’s dominated by capitalist agrochemical profit over people ideology. Destroying soils and biodiversity, and ultimately our ability to grow food in future decades. The UN Sustainable Development Goals have several categories dedicated to the changing of farming practices because current practices cannot go on indefinitely.

    The professor emeritus of food policy at the Centre for Food Policy, City St George’s, University of London seems to agree with me as well.

    Finally, we need vastly more allotments and for gardening organisations to help (re)skill consumers. The Royal Horticultural Society’s (RHS) 2025 State of Gardening report found that while 2.5 million people had participated, more than 14 million wanted to. Growing a bit of food for yourself and others is good for collective wellbeing and health. Gardening organisations “get” it but need a new land strategy to deliver. When Dig for Victory, the national campaign to get Britons to grow food during the second world war, was launched, the RHS was asked to help organise it. Today, academics, metro mayors and regional councils should be asked to ascertain what land across the UK could produce diverse food produce and then facilitate growers to get growing.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/apr/09/uk-food-security-iran-war

    • sparkyshocks@lemmy.zipEnglish
      1·
      18 days ago

      particularly in the growing season

      And if you’re getting 10% of your calories from your garden for 10% of the year, that’s 1%.

      Especially as I’m talking about a community patchwork, where people share their overabundance of squash for someone else’s potatoes.

      Yes, so that’s why I’m saying per person, because each person needs to eat. Yes, people should work together, too, but if you’re talking about a few households adding up to 10 people, then you’re talking about 10 times the food needs (and wants). A community of 100 people needs 100 times as much.

      The amount produced by gardening is never going to be more than a rounding error, while imposing significant efforts on the people who participate. A serious conversation about fertilizer and energy use is going to address the sheer amount of feed and energy that goes into dairy and beef.

      Gardening is a fun hobby and an enriching activity, but it’s not going to move the needle in aggregate ecological statistics like national fertilizer consumption or demand for commercially farmed product.

      So keep growing the things that make economic sense with the resources you have. For me, it’s herbs, alliums, and spicy capsicums, where I go for things high in flavor so that the tiny amount I produce can still make an impact on the dishes I make, for at least a few weeks out of the year. But I’m not laboring under any kind of misconception that I’m appreciably changing my demand for farmland, fertilizer, agricultural inputs like fertilizer or pesticide, water, or energy. And there’s nothing wrong with gardening for flowers or other plants that don’t produce food, either.

      For these large scale problems, we need hard numbers, not just feelings of one’s perceived personal sacrifices. Follow the math.