South West Asia
Dire straits: the farming crisis
By Rahul Jaywant Bhise
June 2026
In eastern India, the effects of the Iran war are showing up not in fuel queues or port delays but in the calculations farmers make before sowing. The kharif season begins with the southwest monsoon, which advances across India during June. That is when demand rises for urea, India’s most widely used nitrogen fertiliser. If supplies are tight at this time the consequences appear later in weaker harvests. Rahul Jaywant Bhise writes on how the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is turning an energy shock into a fertiliser and food-security crisis across Asia.
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