Business · 14 April 2026
The one crop ingredient you can never skip, just got 50% more expensive
Unsplash / Etienne Girardet
Potash can wait a season. Phosphates can wait a season. Nitrogen cannot. It must be applied to crops every single year without exception, and urea prices have jumped from around $400-490 to $700 per metric ton since the war began. Northern Hemisphere farmers are in the middle of their spring planting right now, which means any shortfall will cut yields later this year and push food prices higher well into 2027.
Reported by CNBC / Ninety One / Oxford Economics · How we write briefs