The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) announced that in April 2026, global food prices rose to their highest levels in more than three years.
The average food price index recorded 130.7 points, an increase of 1.6% from last March.
The organization directly attributed this rise to the repercussions of the war in the region and the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which caused a sharp jump in energy prices.
Disruption of fertilizer supply chains and wheat production
The disruption of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a third of the world's fertilizer supplies pass, has caused a severe production crisis.
Rising fertilizer prices have pushed farmers to switch to less intensive crops, reducing global wheat production forecasts for 2026 by about 2% to 817 million tonnes.
In the same context, the price of a ton of urea in Egypt jumped from $490 to nearly $700 immediately after the outbreak of the war.
Vegetable oil prices have seen a record 5.9% rise since March, driven by higher energy costs and increased demand for palm oil from the biofuels sector.
The rice price index also increased by 1.9% due to increased energy-related production and marketing costs in most exporting countries.
However, agri-food systems have shown resilience in some sectors thanks to adequate supplies from previous seasons.
One billion people are threatened
A recent joint report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned that global agri-food systems are on the brink of collapse as a result of extreme heatwaves, putting the health and livelihoods of more than one billion people under direct threat.
The report said temperatures exceeding 30 degrees Celsius would damage crops, livestock, fisheries and forests.
According to Kafah Zahedi, director of the FAO's climate change office, every 1 degree increase in the average global temperature reduces the productivity of maize, rice, soybeans and wheat by about 6%.
"Extreme heat is remapping what farmers, fishermen and foresters can grow and when to plant it, and in some cases even determining whether they can continue to operate in the first place," he said.
The oceans have also been severely affected, with 91% of them experiencing at least one marine heatwave in 2024, threatening global fish stocks.
Africa. The weakest link to price shocks
African countries are still the most affected by the fluctuations of foreign markets due to their dependence on fertilizer imports.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has deprived countries such as Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique of access to about 30 percent of the world's fertilizer trade. In Zambia, studies have warned that a delay in fertilizer distribution for a few days could lead to a 4% reduction in maize yield per season.