Sixty-five-year-old farmer Rabie Abdel Azim, from the village of Gardu in Fayoum Governorate, was caught off guard this week when the price of a 50-kilogramme bag of fertiliser jumped 50% overnight.
The price went up to EGP 1,200 ($22) from EGP 800 ($15) right before the outbreak of the US-Israeli war on Iran.
Just a year ago, the same bag cost no more than EGP 350 ($7) — an increase of 243% year-on-year.
Rabie cultivates roughly half a feddan of clover, a crop that requires heavy fertilisation. He needs four bags every two weeks, at a cost of up to EGP 9,600 ($176) per month. "In one week, the price of a bag of fertiliser went up by EGP 400, and that's not counting the pesticides, which went from EGP 210 to EGP 350 ($3.8-$6.4) and still don't work that well," Rabie told The New Arab. He now fears a growing black market, saying some employees inside agricultural cooperatives are stockpiling a portion of their ministry-allocated fertiliser quotas and reselling them to traders on the black market, or to farmers at half the commercial price, at around EGP 600 ($11). Alaa Mohamed Awad, director of Al-Hamad Pesticides Company in Beheira, on the western bank of the Nile Delta in northern Egypt, says the shock has already been transmitted through distribution networks. "The major distribution companies controlling the fertiliser market have raised their prices by 15% as a result of increased shipping and distribution costs,” Alaa told The New Arab .
"A product that used to cost EGP 100, now costs EGP 115, but to maintain the margins, I sell it to the farmer for EGP 130." Why Hormuz matters Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz to international shipping since 28 February, following US-Israeli strikes on Iranian territory.
The obstruction of the narrow waterway shared with Oman that normally carries around 20 million barrels of oil and petroleum products per day — roughly 20% of global oil consumption and about 25% of all seaborne oil trade — triggered historic surges in oil prices, with analysts projecting Brent crude could reach $150 to 200 per barrel if the closure continues, driven by a sharp contraction in global supply. The crisis caused an immediate price spike of more than 55% in the first month, raising fears of severe global inflation.
Analysts say that the central risk to food security in Egypt, whose population is approaching 120 million, is not whether fertiliser is available on paper; it is whether energy remains affordable and reliably supplied across production, transport, and storage. Fertiliser price spikes are one symptom, but the pressure spreads further when fuel and gas costs surge, influencing irrigation, pumping, mechanised planting and harvesting, refrigeration, and the movement of inputs and crops.
This drives up the cost base of food, and they can also curb domestic fertiliser production because that industry is gas-intensive. According to a report by EGAS (Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company), fertiliser and petrochemical plants consume between 35% and 40% of the industrial sector's total gas consumption, estimated at approximately 1.6 billion cubic feet per day.
That is equivalent to around 25% of total domestic consumption.
Egypt's natural gas reserves are estimated at 2.1 trillion cubic metres, the third largest in Africa, but last week, the government raised the price of gas supplied to fertiliser plants to $8.5 per million British thermal units as global prices climb, a 21% increase.
This comes after Egypt's monthly energy bill rose from $1.2 billion before the war to $2.5 billion, roughly one month into the war, prompting a slew of measures to conserve energy. Food crisis expected within four months Mohamed Mahmoud, a member of the Fertilizers Committee and head of the Growth Regulators Committee at the Ministry of Agriculture, says the impact of the Strait of Hormuz closure on Egypt's food security will be felt within four to six months. "Pressure will build gradually as higher energy and transport costs pass through the entire food chain," Mohamed told The New Arab , noting that stocks may cover current needs for a limited period, after which costs will rise as production plummets and exports suffer.
"The closure of the strait will naturally affect supplies of imported phosphate fertilisers,” adds Mohamed, warning that fertiliser manufacturing is entirely dependent on gas.
"If energy is unaffordable, fertiliser production drops, which then affects self-sufficiency and exports."
Mohamed also noted that Egypt's self-sufficiency in vegetables and fruit and its ability to export depend on stable energy and logistics. Mina Victor, an administrative supervisor at Al-Karma Agricultural Development Company, told The New Arab that the Hormuz closure has had a marked impact on farm service costs. The Ministry of Agriculture, which allocates urea and nitrate fertiliser quotas to farmers as agricultural support, can no longer do so due to sharp price increases. "Now farmers are forced to buy from independent companies, raising costs that will be reflected in food prices," Mina told The New Arab , noting that the closure also impacted labour costs, with the average daily wage also rising to EGP 300 ($6) per five-hour shift."
While large farms can withstand the fertiliser stress for roughly one year, smallholder seasonal farmers who cannot afford to stockpile will struggle, Mina adds. Nader Nour El-Din, professor of Water Resources at Cairo University and consultant with the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), warns of an impending energy crisis accompanied by rising prices, increased maritime and inland shipping costs, and higher offloading expenses. These costs account for roughly 33% of food production costs, given their role in fertilisers, pesticides, growth regulators, refrigeration and heating equipment, water pumps, and processes of ploughing, planting, harvesting, threshing, storage, and marketing. "Food price increases in Egypt will be driven by domestic rather than global factors, rising dollar rates, then rising fuel prices," Nader told The New Arab. "Energy is a thermal commodity that pulls the prices of all other goods upward."
The energy hikes will determine whether farms can operate affordably, whether fertiliser factories can keep producing, and whether food can move from fields to markets without sharp price inflation, he added. Egypt's fertiliser needs and the subsidy gap Egypt's total fertiliser consumption in 2023 reached approximately 532.77 kg per hectare, sourced domestically at 41.54% of the total fertiliser production, which reached approximately 19 million tonnes annually in 2023, according to statements by Engineer Mahmoud Ismat, Minister of the Public Business Sector. Fertilisers ranked second among Egyptian exports at $2.7 billion in 2022. Despite that, landowners receive minimal subsidies that do not exceed EGP 2,000 ($36.81) per year, according to Mahmoud Al-Salehi, chairman of the Al-Arouba Agricultural Cooperative in Badr City, Beheira. "But the price of a subsidised bag of nitrogen rose from EGP 250 to EGP 290, and the fertiliser subsidy quota has declined compared to the previous year," he told The New Arab. The result, says agricultural engineer Ahmed Ali Awad, is that food security will inevitably be impacted. Ahmed attributes this to the use of chemical fertilisers, given their speed, low cost, and quick results. "Fertiliser companies exploited farmers' needs, but perhaps it is time to go back to natural farming and organic fertilisation, using poultry waste, chicken manure, and animal dung," Ahmed told The New Arab. "Within just 10 years, Egypt would eliminate its dependence on chemical fertilizers entirely."
For now, farmers like Rabie Abdel Azim have no choice but to confront the crisis in its most immediate form, battling higher input prices, shrinking access to subsidised supplies, and a market vulnerable to hoarding and resale. Shaimaa Al Youssef is a journalist reporting from Cairo who specialises in Middle East affairs This article is published in collaboration with Egab