Many developing countries - including Mongolia, Honduras, Cameroon, Ghana, Senegal, Mexico and Guatemala - rely on Russia for at least a fifth of their imports. Its ally Belarus, also contending with Western sanctions, is another major fertilizer producer. 2 in phosphorus and potassium fertilizers. 1 exporter of nitrogen fertilizer and No. The aid group Action Aid warns that families in the Horn of Africa are already being driven “to the brink of survival.” “Food prices will skyrocket because farmers will have to make profit, so what happens to consumers?” said Uche Anyanwu, an agricultural expert at the University of Nigeria. The loss of those affordable supplies of wheat, barley and other grains raises the prospect of food shortages and political instability in Middle Eastern, African and some Asian countries where millions rely on subsidized bread and cheap noodles. The fertilizer crunch threatens to further limit worldwide food supplies, already constrained by the disruption of crucial grain shipments from Ukraine and Russia. Food and Agriculture Organization said last week that its world food-price index in March reached the highest level since it started in 1990. It could hardly come at a worse time: The U.N. While the ripples will be felt by grocery shoppers in wealthy countries, the squeeze on food supplies will land hardest on families in poorer countries. Higher fertilizer prices are making the world’s food supply more expensive and less abundant, as farmers skimp on nutrients for their crops and get lower yields. I am quitting farming to try something else,” she said. “I cannot continue with the farming business. Continuing to work the land, she said, would yield nothing but losses. Now, she would need to spend five times as much. Kariuki used to spend 20,000 Kenyan shillings, or about $175, to fertilize her entire farm.
The war has pushed up the price of natural gas, a key ingredient in fertilizer, and has led to severe sanctions against Russia, a major exporter of fertilizer. What is driving her off her 10 acres of land outside Nairobi isn’t bad weather, pests or blight - the traditional agricultural curses - but fertilizer: It costs too much.ĭespite thousands of miles separating her from the battlefields of Ukraine, Kariuki and her cabbage, corn and spinach farm are indirect victims of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion. Monica Kariuki is about ready to give up on farming.
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