Agriculture relies on fossil fuels. It’s costing us.

If you’ve had to fill up your vehicle’s gas tank or buy a plane ticket lately, you’ve probably felt the effects of rising fossil-fuel prices. But farmers buying fertilizer for their crops are especially aware of just how far the ripple effects of the conflict in Iran have spread. Fertilizer prices have been on a roller coaster this year, kicked off in part by trade disruptions and high prices for natural gas, a key ingredient in fertilizer production.

Let’s take a closer look at why conventional fertilizer prices are so sky-high, and how a few more climate-friendly alternatives could bring farmers some relief. As fossil-fuel prices go up, nearly all industries are affected, since most of our economy relies on these fuels to move goods and people around. But fertilizer is even more intertwined with these fluctuations, because natural gas is used as both an energy source and a chemical input in the production of ammonia, a key fertilizer ingredient.

So as natural-gas prices have spiked in recent months because of the war in Iran, fertilizer prices have followed. (It’s worth briefly noting here that fertilizer production is also a major source of greenhouse-gas emissions, accounting for about 2% of the global total.) Fertilizer trade is being directly affected as well, since about one-third of global seaborne trade in fertilizers passes through the Strait of Hormuz, which has been effectively closed to commercial traffic because of the conflict. Access to fertilizer could get worse for some of the poorest countries around the world because of the strait’s closure, according to a report from the World Bank. While the US largely meets demand for nitrogen fertilizers with domestic production, some imports do come from the Persian Gulf.

At one point in April, the price of urea (the most commonly applied fertilizer) climbed above $850 per metric ton. That’s 80% higher than it was before the conflict and the highest level since 2022, when the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the resulting conflict caused fertilizer costs to hit record highs. Prices have come down significantly, but forecasts remain uncertain.

And because they don’t use natural gas as an input, they aren’t subject to the same price spikes. When the war in Iran started, Pivot increased the volume it planned to produce, dropped prices, and allowed farmers to lock in prices for three years, Frey says. That could be a major help for those farmers, because high prices could be here to stay for a while.

Some fertilizer prices could remain high through at least 2028, according to a report from CoBank, one of the largest banks for the agriculture industry in the US. That’s partly because the war has caused long-lasting damage: 31 ammonia plants in the Middle East have been affected or shut down completely. That’s on top of 20 ammonia plants that have been damaged in Russia in recent years.