Risk of global food shortage from Iran War
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 1 May 2026
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The interruption to supplies of fertiliser and its key ingredients due to the war in Iran could cost up to 10 billion meals a week globally and will hit poorest countries hardest, according to the boss of one of the world's biggest fertiliser producers. Svein Tore Holsether, chief executive of Yara, told the BBC that hostilities in the Gulf, which have blocked shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, are jeopardising global food production.
Also in the programme: Ukraine has been stepping up its campaign against Russia's oil industry; and is fish fraud affecting one of Britain's national dishes?
(Picture: Workers carry fertiliser bags to be mixed with water at a farm's irrigation centre. Credit: REUTERS/Rula Rouhana/File Photo)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:09.2 | Hello and welcome to News Air from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:12.5 | We're coming to you live from London. |
| 0:14.4 | I'm James Menendez. |
| 0:15.8 | And our top story today is the war in Iran, or rather the stalemate between Washington and Tehran that's becoming |
| 0:22.5 | ever more entrenched, and in turn what that stalemate means for the world's ability to feed itself. |
| 0:29.6 | Both sides are currently blockading the Strait of Hormuz, that crucial waterway for exports |
| 0:34.2 | out of the Gulf, principally oil and gas, but also shipments of fertiliser. |
| 0:39.5 | About a third of the world's supply of synthetic or inorganic fertilizer passes through the |
| 0:44.6 | straight, its production relies on natural gas. But that's effectively ground to a halt because of |
| 0:50.3 | the conflict. And that is terrible news for farmers around the world and by extension, |
| 0:55.5 | us the consumers. And that impact was put in frighteningly stark terms today by the head of one |
| 1:00.9 | of the world's biggest fertilizer companies, Svein Holsether of Yarra, who's told the BBC the |
| 1:06.5 | blockade could cost the world 10 billion meals every week. |
| 1:13.6 | Fertilizer is not just any other commodity. |
| 1:16.9 | It's responsible for half of the food production in the world. |
| 1:26.3 | And given the importance of the strait of hormones for fertilizer exports, it has huge consequences for every day that passes. |
| 1:30.2 | And right now it's not only a matter of not getting product out. |
| 1:34.9 | It's also a matter of not being able to produce in that part of the world as well. |
| 1:37.2 | And it's very difficult to put exact numbers. |
| 1:39.9 | No one has full overview of that. |
| 1:45.2 | But if I try to estimate, it could be that we're up to about half a million tons of nitrogen fertilizers not being produced in the world right now because of the situation that we're in. |
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