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Hello and welcome to NewsHour. It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service studios in central London.

I'm Tim Franks.

We're beginning the programme with some figures, some of which may seem familiar, one of which

seems mind-blowing, and more is leading to warnings of a slow-motion famine machine, as it's

been called. The familiar figures are about the amount of traffic transiting the Strait of

Hormuz, that vital and blockaded waterway to the south of Iran.

The latest numbers suggest that just a few ships are managing to pass through the US

and Iranian blockade each day. Analysts with the British Navy have said today that

overall shipping traffic has dropped more than 90% since the conflict began.

So much, perhaps so familiar.

But the juddering new number is over what that could mean,

that the blockade could cost the world 10 billion meals a month.

That assessment has come from the boss of one of the world's biggest manufacturers of fertilizer.

Svein Holsetta, who runs Yarra, has been talking to the BBC.

Fertiliser is not just any other commodity.

It's responsible for half of the food production in the world. And given the importance of the strait of hormones for fertilizer exports, it has huge consequences

for every day that passes. And right now it's not only a matter of not getting product out.

It's also a matter of not being able to produce in that part of the world as well. And it's

very difficult to put exact numbers. No one has full overview of that.

But if I try to estimate, it could be that we're up to about half a million tons of nitrogen fertilizer not being produced in the world right now because of the situation that we're in.

And if I try to translate that into, okay, so what does that mean for food production?

...