Farmers are very busy in the spring, under pressure to get crops into the ground just as the Northern Hemisphere begins to thaw. But this year has been different for many, thanks in large part to the escalating war in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow channel, approximately 30 miles wide at its tightest point, between the Omani Musandam Peninsula and Iran. Roughly half of fertilizer feedstock exports - the various raw materials used to make fertilizer like urea, ammonia, sulfur, hydrogen, natural gas, and nitrogen - come through the Strait. And about roughly half of the world's food production re …