Global hunger was already soaring as we entered 2026, and now it appears that we have a historic crisis on our hands. The war with Iran has significantly restricted the flow of fertilizer out of the Middle East, and even the UN is admitting that this will make global food supplies much tighter in the months ahead. Meanwhile, the war in Eastern Europe has greatly escalated and that has resulted in severely reduced wheat exports from Ukraine. On top of everything else, it is being projected that the strongest Super El Niño in recorded history will peak later this year, and as a result crazy weather patterns will continue to hammer crops all over the planet. At this stage, no rational person can deny what we are witnessing.
Experts are warning that this upcoming fall harvest season will be a real turning point.
Agriculture analyst Noel Fryer recently explained to CNBC why we are facing a “perfect storm” for global food production…
“A lot of things will come together to seriously affect crops next year,” Fryer said on Thursday.
“We’ve had crops decimated by weather in Europe and the U.S. A searingly hot summer in Europe has eroded grazing potential, with no hay and grass for cattle. A possible result of that is significant herd liquidation,” he said.
“We’ve got no end in sight to the Black Sea problem. The issue with fertilizer since the start of the Iran conflict is still there and if anything getting worse. U.S. corn yields look concerning after a wet spring and less fertilizer use, and could push prices up.”
We have never been through anything quite like this.
Everyone assumed that commercial traffic would always be able to flow freely through the Strait of Hormuz, but now everything has changed.
Much of the fertilizer that normally comes out of the Persian Gulf didn’t get to farmers in the northern hemisphere this year, and as a result the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is projecting that there will be a substantial tightening of global food supplies following the coming harvest season…
The Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), QU Dongyu, emphasized today that the global fertilizer scarcity caused by disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz will lead to lower yields and tightening food supplies in the latter half of 2026 and into 2027. He spoke at the Ministerial Meeting of the MED9++ Countries on “Supporting Food Security and Access to Fertilizers” co-chaired by FAO, Italy and Croatia.
Addressing ministers and senior representatives gathered in Rome, the Director-General stressed that the current crisis extends far beyond geopolitics, increasingly affecting food production, trade, agricultural inputs and access to food worldwide.
“We meet at a moment of profound strain,” the Director-General said. “This is not only a geopolitical crisis, but also a disruption at the core of the global agrifood system.”
So what will 2027 be like?
In addition to facing a global fertilizer crisis, the rapidly escalating war in Eastern Europe has severely disrupted Ukrainian grain exports…
Recent military strikes on grain export facilities, oil tankers and vessels in the Black Sea region have now made it too challenging for shipping firms to get insurance, meaning many are avoiding its ports. Alternative land routes for Ukrainian grain are also being stymied by low water levels on the Danube river, and by rail maintenance in Eastern Europe.
Separately, Bloomberg pointed out that Russian attacks on Odesa have nearly halted Ukraine’s grain exports this peak harvest season. Total grain shipments from Ukraine have amounted to about 500,000 tons since the start of August, equivalent to roughly 20% of the country’s potential exports. The Greater Odesa ports normally handle about 90% of Ukraine’s grain shipments.
Meanwhile, the wheat harvest in the United States is going to be very disappointing this year.
According to Newsweek, it is being estimated that the U.S. will “harvest its lowest acreage of wheat since 1877″…
America is expected to harvest its lowest acreage of wheat since 1877, due to drought, scorched crops, high input costs and uncertainty in export markets.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Agricultural Statistics Service released estimates on June 30 that the total area of all wheat planted was 42.7 million acres in 2026, down six percent from the previous year. This was also 1 million acres below the agency’s March forecasts.
The harvested area of all wheat for 2026 is forecasted to be around 32 million acres, which would be the lowest level in about a century and a half, according to USDA data.
It’s a perfect storm of terrible conditions for wheat farmers this year. Drought, dramatic swings in temperature, the skyrocketing price of fertilizer and diesel, plus multiple viruses affecting wheat have all led to one of the most challenging years for farmers in decades.
The outlook for the months ahead is not promising at all because we haven’t even reached the peak of the Super El Niño yet.
According to CNN, the latest forecast from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says that there is almost a 70 percent chance that this Super El Niño will be the strongest Super El Niño in recorded history…
One prominent climate scientist named Daniel Swain is openly admitting that we are “already at record-breaking or record-tying territory now”…
“This is a genuinely remarkable event,” said University of California climate scientist Daniel Swain in a YouTube briefing on El Niño broadcast this week.
“We’re already at record-breaking or record-tying territory now, and we’re expected to skyrocket,” he said.
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