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| In this episode of Monetary Matters, StoneX Vice President Josh Linville explains how the Iran War and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz have triggered a global fertilizer crisis that is currently crippling agricultural economics. With urea prices effectively doubling in just a few months, Josh warns that the market is facing a supply shock far more severe than the 2022 crisis because current grain prices aren't high enough to offset these surging input costs. The geopolitical bottleneck in the Persian Gulf has effectively sidelined three of the world's top ten urea exporters, removing enough nitrogen from the market to cover nearly the entire US corn crop. Beyond shipping delays, recent attacks on energy infrastructure in Qatar and Iran have caused structural damage that experts estimate could take three to five years to fully repair. This massive loss of production capacity, combined with a lack of global stockpiles, means the market must now find balance through aggressive demand destruction. Consequently, the price floor for critical fertilizers has likely been raised for the remainder of 2026, forcing farmers to make difficult choices about planting and yields
https://youtu.be/zL3k_TmlCPs?si=Xa-1XTXkHbRh1bZb | |
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