Dr. Amit Roy is chair of the Sasakawa Africa Association, and the former president and chief executive officer of the International Fertilizer Development Center. Dr. Nicolas Pinkowski is cofounder and CEO of Nitricity, a California-based startup producing organic nitrogen fertilizer from air, water, renewable energy, and upcycled almond shells.
The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not necessarily represent those of AgFunderNews.
The current conflict in the Persian Gulf is disrupting natural gas and oil markets around the world as Iran limits the passage of exports through the Strait of Hormuz.
Beyond oil and natural gas, the region is also a major exporter of urea, a common source of nitrogen fertilizer. The ripple effects are already spreading through the global fertilizer market, driving up costs for farmers and ultimately raising prices across the entire food supply chain.
The economic impact is enormous as the Persian Gulf has exported $50 billion of nitrogen fertilizers since 2020. Major importers, including India, Brazil, Bangladesh, and many others are vulnerable to a shock to the system. For example, the price of urea jumped 37% over a week in Egypt. Those costs inevitably reach consumers in the form of higher food prices and increased food insecurity.
Yet a new generation of agricultural technology is emerging that could help break this cycle. For the first time in more than a century, we now have the ability to produce fertilizer locally using just renewable electricity, and locally available materials. If deployed at scale, these innovations could decouple fertilizer production from volatile fossil fuel markets and protect farmers from geopolitical shocks.
The stakes are especially high for the world’s poorest farmers. History shows that fertilizer price spikes hit hardest in developing regions. During past energy crises such as the oil shocks of the 1970s, the 2008 food crisis, and the Russia–Ukraine war, fertilizer costs surged globally. Farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, who depend heavily on imported fertilizer, responded by cutting back or abandoning fertilizer use altogether.
Reduced fertilizer creates a continued domino effect that leads to lower crop yields, tightening food supplies, and driving prices even higher. Hunger increases, and governments are forced to spend billions subsidizing fertilizer imports to stabilize domestic food production.
Decentralizing fertilizer production
The problem is simple: fertilizer production remains deeply dependent on fossil fuels. Nitrogen fertilizer, the most widely used nutrient in agriculture, is produced primarily through the Haber-Bosch process, a technology developed more than a century ago. While revolutionary for its time, Haber-Bosch requires enormous quantities of natural gas and operates in massive centralized plants that distribute fertilizer across long international supply chains.
Despite decades of volatility, meaningful alternatives have been slow to emerge. The good news is that we now have real, tested technology to finally decouple fertilizer from fossil fuels. Recent advances make it possible to decentralize fertilizer production and tailor it to local conditions.
Instead of relying on a handful of massive global production hubs, fertilizer can increasingly be produced closer to where it is used and tailored to the soils where they are applied.
Fertilizer consists of three primary nutrients that provide varied benefits to soils and crops: nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K).
👉 For nitrogen, companies like Nitricity have developed innovative technology that can produce nitrogen fertilizer by harnessing renewable energy and locally available agricultural byproducts. These modular systems can be deployed near farming regions anywhere in the world, dramatically shortening supply chains while reducing transportation costs and emissions. Each plant can also adjust calcium and pH during production to deliver customized benefits for soil health, crop resilience, and nutrition versus a one size fits all approach.
👉 Phosphorus can also be produced more locally. One approach is to use partially acidulated rock phosphate (PAPR), which is created by blending 10–20 percent of commercial fertilizers such as diammonium phosphate (DAP) or triple superphosphate (TSP) with raw phosphate rock. This method requires far less energy than conventional processing and could be particularly valuable in Africa, where roughly 65% of the world’s phosphate reserves are located, including major deposits in countries such as Morocco, Togo, and Senegal that already provide inputs for conventional fertilizer products.
👉 Potassium offers similar opportunities. Materials such as wood ash and potassium-rich rocks are widely available in countries like Ethiopia and the Republic of Congo. With the right processing technologies, these materials can provide accessible sources of potash for regional fertilizer production.
In nearly one month since the beginning of the current conflict, people around the world are already feeling the economic consequences of fertilizer volatility. Investing in decentralized fertilizer technologies would allow countries to localize production, strengthen food security, improve soil health, and reduce dependence on volatile fossil fuel markets and imported agricultural inputs.
If we continue relying on the same centralized systems that have existed for more than a century, we should not be surprised when the same crises continue to produce the same outcomes.
Countries around the world want to support their farmers, especially during such a volatile period. This time, we have the technology to finally choose a different path.
The post Guest article: Technology now exists to decouple fertilizer from oil and gas markets appeared first on AgFunderNews.
Â
