The ongoing US-Israeli conflict with Iran is affecting sea traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, highlighting the vulnerability of global fertilizer supply chains. Fertilizer production is heavily reliant on fossil fuels, and the strait serves as a critical passage for oil, gas, fertilizer, and its components, with approximately 33 percent of fertilizer shipments by sea passing through. Consequently, US nitrogen fertilizer prices surged by over 20 percent in the initial week of the conflict, a situation reminiscent of 2022 when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine led to similar price hikes.
This issue extends beyond a temporary price increase; it underscores a broader dependence on fertilizers.
The high cost of dependency
The current situation presents a pivotal moment. Solutions proposed by the agrichemical sector and its advocates aim to stabilize fertilizer prices by reinforcing existing systems. This includes military safeguards for shipments and expanding domestic fertilizer production, which would perpetuate reliance on fossil fuels. Instead of expanding this fragile system, a more sustainable approach would focus on gradually reducing farmers’ dependency on fertilizers. This shift would benefit farmers, taxpayers, public health, and improve soil, water, and climate conditions.
Historically, US agricultural policies and agribusiness have pushed farmers towards a model dependent on purchased inputs like fertilizers, focusing on crops like corn and soybeans, and exposing them to volatile global markets. This model, often labeled as efficient, fails to provide true efficiency if it leaves farmers vulnerable to geopolitical disruptions and requires substantial taxpayer-funded subsidies to maintain. Fertilizer costs recently accounted for 33 to 44 percent of corn operating expenses and 34 to 45 percent for wheat, posing significant financial risks. The core issue is that incentives in US agriculture still promote the wrong practices.
Existing solutions
Fertilizer dependency is not unavoidable. Farmers can step off the treadmill of excessive chemical purchases, which contribute to severe pollution issues. Practical and proven solutions are available, including efficiency improvements that reduce fertilizer usage by applying it at optimal times and aligning rates with crop and soil needs. Practices that reduce reliance on purchased fertilizers can also be implemented. Currently, more than 95 percent of US corn acres use nitrogen fertilizer, with corn accounting for 78 percent of nitrogen fertilizer applied to major US field crops. Legumes like peas, beans, clover, and alfalfa can naturally supply nitrogen. Diverse crop rotations can disrupt pest cycles, enhance soil fertility, and minimize chemical use. Cover crops can retain nutrients, curtail erosion, and enhance soil health. More substantial changes, such as introducing perennial crops or integrating crops and livestock, can transition farms towards a model with lower inputs, reduced costs, and improved profitability. These strategies, often referred to as agroecology, are not futuristic concepts but practical approaches already in use on farms.
The public often perceives fertilizer dependence as inevitable, but it is not. What is necessary is support for farmers to make large-scale transitions. The key question is whether federal policies will assist farmers in utilizing the existing alternatives.
Congressional decisions in progress
Lawmakers are currently addressing this issue through the farm bill and annual budget allocations. First, Congress is drafting a new food and farm bill. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the current House draft could slash around $1 billion in budget authority over the next four fiscal years from the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). This cut would diminish support for a major federal initiative aimed at helping farmers conserve soil and water, reduce pollution, and manage input usage more effectively. In 2024, EQIP and the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), which promotes and expands conservation practices, enrolled about 30 million acres, supporting approximately 160,000 participants with $3.7 billion in contracts.
These programs require substantial reinforcement, not reductions. Despite additional funding from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), they remain severely oversubscribed: in 2024, only about 44 percent of EQIP applicants and 54 percent of CSP applicants secured contracts. This was an increase of roughly 18 percentage points for EQIP and 23 for CSP from pre-IRA levels, demonstrating both the impact of the additional funding and the significant unmet demand.
Simultaneously, the House draft proposes directing limited public funds towards costly, proprietary “precision ag” systems touted as solutions to optimize fertilizer application in fields. However, the evidence is mixed, the cost savings are uncertain, and these technologies are often inaccessible to smaller operations. At best, they fine-tune but perpetuate high-input industrial agriculture and do not support a genuine transition for farmers.
Second, Congress is setting annual funding levels. House appropriators opened the FY27 request process on February 25, and these decisions will determine whether the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has the necessary technical assistance and research funding to assist farmers in transitioning to lower-input systems successfully.
The network of Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) offices, staffed with highly trained scientists and experts with deep regional knowledge, is intended to facilitate this transition. However, recent staffing cuts and field-office closures have weakened this infrastructure, with staff numbers dropping from 11,715 in 2025 to an estimated 8,000 in 2026. Even before discussions of funding cuts or reallocations, the core issue is that transition support falls significantly short of what is needed.
The research component is crucial as well. To facilitate a move away from fertilizer overdependence, scientists argue that publicly funded research, extension, and technical support focused on lower-input systems are essential to maintaining profitability and resilience. Yet, a Union of Concerned Scientists analysis of USDA external research grants revealed that only 15 percent of funding was allocated to projects with any agroecological component, 5 to 10 percent to those with an overall agroecological focus, and a mere 4 percent to projects combining agroecological practices with socioeconomic support.
This represents a significant disconnect. While farmers grapple with recurring fertilizer and energy shocks, USDA research funding does little to develop and scale systems designed to reduce fertilizer dependence. Instead, much public research remains focused on supporting high-input models that prioritize maximizing yields in dependent systems over food security and farm profitability, optimizing synthetic fertilizer use rather than replacing it, and advancing technologies that increase reliance on agribusiness-controlled products and services.
Investing in resilience
The decision is not between spending and not spending but between investing a little now to reduce risk or spending much more on volatility and pollution in the future. The public already subsidizes the current system, which supports risky farming practices and relies heavily on costly, polluting inputs. Therefore, investing in reducing fertilizer dependence is the fiscally prudent choice.
For instance, Iowa State’s long-term Marsden rotation study demonstrated that three- and four-year rotations incorporating small grains and forage legumes into corn-soybean rotations used 86 and 91 percent less mineral nitrogen fertilizer and 96 and 97 percent less herbicide than a standard two-year corn-soy system. Corn yields were 4 percent higher, soybean yields 16 percent higher, and spring nitrate levels in drainage water were 57 percent lower in these diverse systems. Such systems can also help reduce water pollution cleanup costs. In other words, more diverse systems not only cut pollution and input costs but also proved agronomically and economically viable.
Thus, another energy-driven fertilizer shock should not be an excuse to deepen dependence, but rather a catalyst for supporting the transition away from it.
