FAO Chief Economist Maximo Torero said it without diplomatic cushion: "The clock is ticking." [1] The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization warned this week that disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz are choking the flow of fuel and fertilizer to countries that cannot afford alternatives, threatening planting seasons that do not adjust to geopolitics. Yesterday, this paper covered the FAO's initial catastrophe warning. The language has since intensified.

The mechanism is straightforward. Roughly 20 percent of global crude oil transits Hormuz, but the strait also carries a significant share of urea and other nitrogen-based fertilizers produced in the Persian Gulf. [1] The blockade has driven urea prices up 30 percent in two weeks. [2] For farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia — regions that depend on imported fertilizer for basic food production — a 30 percent price increase during planting season is not an inconvenience. It is a decision between planting and not planting.

Torero's phrase — "the clock is ticking" — referred specifically to crop calendars. [1] Wheat planting in North Africa, rice preparation in South Asia, and maize planting in East Africa all operate on seasonal windows measured in weeks. Fertilizer that arrives late arrives too late. The blockade does not need to last a year to damage food production. It needs to last through the next planting window.

The IMF has echoed the warning in more measured terms, noting that prolonged disruption to energy and agricultural input flows through Hormuz could trigger inflationary spirals in food-importing developing economies. [2] The Fund's concern is second-order: fuel price increases raise transportation costs, which raise food prices, which trigger fiscal crises in governments already stretched by post-pandemic debt.

The Western media's treatment of the food security dimension remains a footnote in coverage dominated by crude oil prices and ceasefire diplomacy. UN News ran Torero's warning as a lead story. [1] Most American and European outlets buried it. The gap between the prominence of oil-price stories and food-security stories reveals which kind of suffering the global north considers newsworthy — and which kind it considers someone else's problem.

-- LUCIA VEGA, Sao Paulo