World News

huh, I wonder how the fertilizer is typically applied - in my limited knowledge, an application of fertilizer would normally be applied to plants that are growing and need the boost; fertilizer applied to young seedlings can burn them and be harmful, and fertilizer applied to soil without any plants will just wash away with the rain and provide no benefit.

That said, I could imagine some farming systems would lay down solid forms of fertilizer like manure before planting crops, but I'm not sure that would apply to the kinds of fertilizer shortages being talked about.

OK, so the headline is just wrong - the farmers are clear about when peak demand for fertilizer is - in June, not March:

Baldev Singh, a 55-year-old rice farmer in Punjab, India, says smallholders — the bulk of the country's farmers — may not survive if the government cannot subsidize fertilizers when demand peaks in June.

Some countries are already facing critical shortages, according to Raj Patel, a food systems economist at the University of Texas. For example, Ethiopia gets over 90% of its nitrogen fertilizer from the Gulf through Djibouti, a supply route that was strained even before the war began in February.

"The planting season is now," Patel said. "The fertilizer isn't there."

"Our crops out in the field need nitrogen now — the sooner the better — so they can get off to a good start, helping them establish themselves and build up reserves for the harvest later this summer," said Dirk Peters, an agricultural engineer who runs a farm outside Berlin.

Fertilizers are generally applied just before or at planting, so crops miss key early growth stages and yields can fall when deliveries are delayed, even if supplies improve later.

It looks like the article is clear that fertilizer is applied before and at planting - which ... seems questionable in terms of nitrogen fertilizers, but I'm sure they know far better than me (maybe they have a mechanism to slow-release the nitrogen into the soil or something).

Either way, it's clear there will be a reduction in how much food output there is.