Frankfurt am Main, Federal Republic of Germany (Weltexpress). Under the headline “The food market has become a battlefield”, Gleb Prostakov reports in Vzglyad (2 October 2026) that “two logistics hubs” on Earth have more or less ceased to function simultaneously. Quote: “The Strait of Hormuz, through which, prior to the conflict, around a third of the world’s trade in nitrogen fertilisers and almost half of the global trade in sulphur (a raw material for the production of fertilisers and plant protection products) passed, has turned into a war zone. The Black Sea region, through which up to 88 per cent of Russian grain exports were handled by sea, has been largely paralysed.”
Gleb Prostakov provides further information for his readers: “The crisis on the fertiliser market is directly linked to the crisis on the food market – without fertiliser, the efficiency of modern agriculture drops significantly. Imports of urea from countries supplying it via the Persian Gulf have plummeted by 85 per cent compared with pre-war levels, whilst the average import cost for this fertiliser has risen by 70 per cent year-on-year.”
