Polycrisis as the New Normality
When one crisis after the other sends shockwaves into the remotest rural regions, short term responses must be turned into longterm strategies.
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The convergence of climate change, resource degradation, geopolitical instability, and economic shocks has intensified a set of interconnected multiple crises across the food, energy, water, and environment nexus into one overarching "polycrisis". These overlapping pressures are reshaping agri-food systems globally, with disproportionate impacts on vulnerable populations and smallholder producers. An outward manifestation of these polycrises are the five joint fuel, fertilizer and food price crises that have occurred in less than 20 years. They are being magnified by the impacts of climate change and water scarcities.
The Iran War and the interruption of trade in the Strait of Hormuz
The most recent crisis was initiated by attacks on Iran, which have roiled energy and fertilizer markets and disrupted shipping in the Persian Gulf. The Gulf is a large exporting region for fuel as well as fertilizers and of key inputs to produce fertilizers. Before the conflict, ships carried around 27 percent of world oil and 20 percent of liquified natural gas exports through the Strait of Hormuz, as well as 36 percent of global urea exports.
The crisis had compounding, cascading impacts for oil and fertilizer importing countries. In addition, the Middle Eastern region was hit hard due to its high dependence on food imports and its high level of water scarcity. Both have been exposed by the risk of attacks.
While this latest crisis has its unique characteristics, its global price impacts are similar to those of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war on Ukraine, crises that many low-income countries have yet to recover from (Figure 1).
Fig.1: Five Price Crises in Five Years for Energy, Fertilizer and Food
A particular challenge to farmers has been the fact that fertilizer and fuel prices increased, but global grain prices did not rise to the same level. As such, the grain-to-fertilizer price ratio has been falling from 1.3 in 2000 to just above 0.5 between 2000 and April 2026 (in nominal terms). This worsening ratio challenges the productivity and profitability of farming across the globe because fertilizers present a substantial share of agricultural input costs. With compounding climate extremes, ranging from floods to droughts and wildfires, farmers face increasing challenges to making ends meet.
More diversification means more resilience
The impact of oil and fertilizer dependencies varies by country. Some countries depend heavily on imports of fuel and fertilizers from the Gulf region, others just on one of the two. Yet others are net exporters of fuel, such as Nigeria or Ghana, or of fertilizers, such as Morocco for phosphate. Either way, countries with more diversified import portfolios, sourcing inputs from several supplying countries, are likely to be more resilient to shocks emanating from specific conflict areas such as Ukraine or the Persian Gulf; this applies to both fuel and fertilizer, but also food import dependent countries. In the case of the Iran war, countries in East Asia, parts of South Asia and southern Africa have been particularly hard hit.
Fuel and fertilizer crises have different impacts on national economies. While fuel supply shocks tend to directly and negatively affect urban poverty, fertilizer shortages tend to undermine rural food security. Fertilizer price shocks wind their way more slowly through national economies as fertilizer purchases are generally made on a seasonal basis and application levels remain low in many low-income countries. With agriculture using more energy for mechanization and irrigation in response to labor shortages and climate change, fuel price shocks are starting to transmit much faster to rural areas.
Wide range of responses to severe shocks
In response to global price shocks, regions and local communities respond with sometimes good but often bad policies. Targeted policies can reduce the impacts of polyshocks, but the wrong polices can also amplify crises at the local level. All in all, responses in 2026 are often not dissimilar to those from the 2007/08 food price crisis and range from energy price, fertilizer price and food price responses but also include other interventions. Some, mostly rich, countries lowered fuel taxes. Countries with more means have released fuel reserves, while others have banned energy exports or introduced price controls. A few countries rationed fuel, sometimes for specific purposes. Others responded by expanding ethanol blending requirements. These responses could well further increase the risk of food price spikes given the competing demands for land, fertilizers and water for ethanol and food production. I am singling out water as the ongoing Super-El-Niño event suggests widespread droughts in parts of the world lasting through early 2027.
Other energy responses include interventions in public transportation. These range from free or subsidized public transportation to higher bus fares by countries with tighter financial constraints.
Fertilizer price responses and challenges with movement of foods have led to food export and sometimes import bans in the Gulf region that is particularly affected by the crisis. At the same time, many countries have instituted or strengthened fertilizer subsidy programs, up to the provision of free fertilizers (to some), while yet other countries have downsized fertilizer support programs, have banned fertilizer exports or exerted price controls. It is not always straightforward to discern which policies are harmful to whom, but banning exports or imports of agricultural inputs or food itself can lead to harmful global price spikes, particularly if other countries follow suite.
Yet other country responses to the crises include additional mobility offers, such as encouragement of teleworking, shortened work weeks for civil servants, and the relaxation of the dress code, with a notable example in Japan, in response to joint heat and fuel price crises. Other, often harmful responses include temporary school and university closures in parts of South Asia; changes in who receives food rations; and at the household level, changes in foods that are being cooked in response to local cooking fuel crises, as well as changes in the source of cooking fuel, with households in some areas having to switch from gas to wood fuel due to increasing cost or reduced availability of the cleaner-burning and more efficient fuel.
Gender-blind responses
No detailed data have been collected on the gender aspects of the current crises. But more in-depth analyses of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as anecdotal evidence suggest that the current polycrises are affecting women and girls in particular regarding mobility, as well as the procurement of water, fuel and food. Many of these challenges are exacerbated in the agrifood sector where women’s opportunities are often constrained by local norms and traditions. Traditional gender-blind responses, such as fertilizer subsidies that fail to consider women farmers’ limited access to documentation and transportation required to access subsidized fertilizers, or government decisions to direct limited cooking fuel away from women street vendors will likely further widen existing gender gaps in resources and achievements.
Recurring crises are becoming the new normal
What could be some longer-term responses to these overlapping, cascading polycrises? On the positive side, the recurring fuel price crises are accelerating the energy transition benefitting all economic sectors. Pakistan is often cited as an example where decades of energy crises have led to the rapid adoption of solar roof-top panels as well as to the more recent application of solar energy in rural areas in both households and farms, all without massive subsidies.
At the same time, more investment is needed to reduce the dependency on fertilizers by helping plants fix nitrogen from the air or increase nitrogen use efficiency, instead of depending heavily on fossil fuel derived nutrients and plant protection products. Several promising agroecological approaches are being discussed and tested, and are already the mainstay of operations of poorer farmers in low-income countries.
Other, longer-term policies should include reviews of stock and input sourcing policies. China, but also other countries, had built up large stockpiles of fuel, fertilizers and foods. These stockpiles are costly and, in the case of food, often lead to large shares of spoilage, but they are also essential to reduce commodity price volatility. Given that these recurring crises could become the new normal, renewed investments in stocks and storages, including for water, should be urgently discussed and developed.
Moreover, more active learnings from past failures might help develop more equitable interventions and reduce those,that harm the poorest countries most, such as banning food or fertilizer exports.
A stronger systematic focus on the climate, agrifood and energy nexus is also urgently needed. This includes explicit assessments of how policy choices by richer countries impact poorer nations. And finally, given the quasi-continuous crisis situation, stronger global humanitarian and resilience efforts are required, both in countries directly affected by this crisis, such as Afghanistan, as well as those forgotten along the way, such as Gaza or Sudan.
