La Jornada: Fertilizers, raw materials that have become more expensive

With one exception, fertilizers are leading the rise in raw material prices in recent weeks, the World Bank shows. According to the agency’s monitoring of a series of basic products, chemical fertilizers have become more expensive by an average of 14.33 percent in recent months.

From March to May 2026, a period that coincides with the reduction in energy supply in the world due to the closure of naval transport in the Strait of Hormuz, caused by the war between the United States and Israel against Iran, chemical fertilizers in international markets have risen between 6.19 and 27.8 percent.

The exception in the bullish price race is phosphate rock, whose prices have remained stable since 2024.

At the end of May, the World Bank showed that the prices of triple superphosphate (TSP) and diammonium phosphate (DAP), both of the most used fertilizers in the world, increased by 27.8 and 16.9 percent, respectively, in two months. This places them among the raw materials that became most expensive in international markets.

To a lesser extent, but also with an advance in the recent two months, are potassium chloride, whose international value increased 6.4 percent and urea, with reference to Eastern Europe, which increased 6.2. Phosphorus rock, concentrated in Morocco and being the raw material for other fertilizers, does not move with the variations in the energy market.

However, the increase in some of these products has been so concentrated and high that fertilizers are the group of raw materials that has become more expensive in two months, according to the indices published by the World Bank, followed by base metals, other raw materials, metals and minerals, and grains.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) highlighted in May that “the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is not a temporary interruption of maritime transport, but the beginning of a systemic agri-food shock that could trigger a serious food price crisis in the next six to 12 months.”

The importance of the Strait of Hormuz lies in the fact that up to a fifth of the world’s oil supply and a third of the world’s trade in fertilizer raw materials transits there.

From March to May 2026, the raw materials that have appreciated the most are tea, with the Calcutta reference, which increased 53.4 percent. Liquefied natural gas followed, with the reference of Japan, whose price rose 38.1 percent, and cocoa, 28.4 percent.

They are followed by the TSP, 27.8 percent; cotton, 19.4 percent; soybean oil, 18.9; the DAP, 16.9, and the various references to Thai rice and that it changes according to its quality. The highest quality, because it comes more whole, increased 15.5 percent, and the broken, which also has industrial uses, became more expensive 14.8 percent.