Iran War-Induced Fertilizer Shortage Threatens Farm State Republicans

The Strait of Hormuz standoff caused by the war in Iran is driving up fertilizer prices, hitting farmers in their pocketbooks and threatening to drive up food prices.

Now, Democrats trying to win the U.S. midterm elections in November see another new opportunity to address the affordability crisis and turn the tide after years of losses in states that produce crops and livestock.

According to the Fertilizer Institute, an industry trade association, the Strait of Hormuz is a critical channel for fertilizer, including about 50% of global nitrogen-rich urea fertilizers. The strait has been effectively impassable since President Donald Trump launched the offensive, which is now in its third week with no end in sight.

The shutdown has pushed up fertilizer prices ahead of planting season, potentially scrambling decision-making for farmers across the US, and comes on top of already low commodity prices that have lingered for years and eaten into farmers’ margins.

“We’re in uncharted territory,” Matt Frostick, a Michigan farmer who sits on the board of the National Corn Growers Association, told CNBC in an interview. “It’s like code red.”

Frostick said he bought nitrogen fertilizer Corn cropsAbout $350 per tonne in January. The same product is now closing at $600 per tonne, he said.

The murky farm outlook comes eight months before midterm elections, which could cost Trump control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Democrats trying to win competitive seats in agriculture-heavy states like Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska are jumping on high fertilizer prices as the latest example of the affordability problem plaguing Trump and Republicans.

“There are tons of people in our district like me, and I don’t get it. I don’t get it. It was already hard, and now they’re making it harder and nobody knows why,” said Jake Johnson, a public school teacher currently running for Congress in Minnesota’s First District against Republican Rep. Brad Finstad.

“Our number one job as a campaign and we want to talk to every person we talk to is that we need ways to make things cheaper,” Johnson said.

Democrats’ rural appeals come after hemorrhaging support in the country’s rural, central farm states. Except for Minnesota and Illinois, Trump won every state in the Midwest in 2024. He dominated the county-by-county race, winning 2,660 counties compared to former Vice President Kamala Harris’ 451, according to the Center for Politics, which was concentrated in the most populous parts of the US.

Turning the tide in rural America has been a longtime goal for Democrats, but it’s often elusive. In Iowa in 2018, Democrats won 3 of the state’s 4 congressional seats. Now, Republicans control all four. But with Trump’s economic approval plummeting and Democrats leading on the generic ballot, Democrats have high hopes this year.

Farmers in particular are reeling from Trump’s tariff campaign, Johnson said, after his White House authorized a roughly $12 billion bailout last year. War now adds new inflationary wrinkles.

“A vote for me is a vote to end the tariff and it’s a vote to end the war,” he said. “We need to start by undoing the obvious damage the status quo has inflicted on us.”

Republicans, meanwhile, are scrambling to offer even more aid to farmers just months after last year’s infusion. An additional farmer bailout, estimated at about $15 billion, has been discussed before the war to address low crop prices — and lawmakers are now trying to attach it to a potential Iran supplemental spending bill. The White House is floating a $200 billion spending request for the war.

“Clearly supporting the conflict in Iran,” said Sen. John Hoven, RN.D. He said in an interview.

To get approval for such a package in the Senate, Hoeven said he expected it would need to add more than just war spending. He pointed to disaster aid and aid to farmers, which Democrats want, as possible add-ons.

Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said he is working with the administration to quickly find a solution to the fertilizer problem.

“The good news is that everybody understands what a problem this is for our farmers,” Boozman said in an interview. “Because of that, everything is on the table. We are looking at all available options and we hope to decide on a plan soon.”

Boozman did not elaborate on what those plans are. His counterpart in the House, Rep. GT Thompson, R-Ark., said Trump is “aggressively” trying to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Thompson noted Trump’s efforts “for other countries to make sure that those transport ships and tankers can safely pass through that narrow strip.”

Any duty on fertilizer should be removed before the planting season, he said.

“We really shouldn’t have tariffs on fertilizer or any of the components,” he said.

On Fox Business, Treasury Secretary Scott Besant said Thursday that Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins “will likely make an announcement on fertilizers in the next few days.”

Besant noted that Trump’s tariffs largely exempt nitrogen-based fertilizer, which is critical to growing corn.

But despite efforts to free stranded cargo ships, opening the strait to allow fertilizer to flow is a tall order for the administration. And the risks to US farmers and food consumers continue to rise.

“Without strategically prioritizing the delivery of critical farm inputs such as urea, ammonia, nitrogen, phosphate and sulfur-based products, the U.S. faces crop shortages,” American Farm Bureau Federation President Gippy Duvall said in a recent letter to Trump. “Not only is it a threat to our food security — and by extension our national security — such a production shock could lead to inflationary pressures throughout the U.S. economy.”

The Honorable Joe Glauber, former chief economist at the Department of Agriculture under the Obama administration and research associate at the International Food Policy Research Institute, said the shock was similar to when Russia invaded Ukraine — but noted that the accompanying commodity price spikes are now missing.

“We hit record levels in 2022,” Glauber said. “But the other thing that’s going to be really high in 2022 is grain prices, and so farmers, even though they’re paying really high fertilizer costs, they’ve been able to get more or less because they’re getting better returns from what they’re selling.”

Glaber said farmers are right to worry if they’re only considering their balance sheet — what they grow and what they sell. But he noted that the influx of government payments to farmers, as now being considered in Congress, has been large in recent years.

“If you add in government payments it’s a different story,” Glauber said. “And there are just a ton of government payments.”

Frostick, a Michigan farmer, aims to get Congress to pass a “consumer choice” bill that would allow drivers to buy ethanol gasoline, known as E15, year-round. Ethanol is generally cheaper than regular gasoline, and the bill would potentially boost commodity prices by giving farmers a new market to sell to.

And Frostick, who says he’s grateful for the government payments, said the bailout may ease and he wants to make money by selling his crop.

“I would rather make money selling my products than the government writing me a check to make me whole,” he said. “It distorts the market so much, it can pick winners and losers, and usually when we get checks like that, it’s a pass-through.”