Garrett Mauch spreads manure as fertilizer on his family’s farm in Lamar, Colorado on January 21, 2026.
RJ Sangosti | The Denver Post via Getty Images | Denver Post | getty images
Due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz due to the war in Iran, fertilizer prices are rising, hitting the pockets of farmers and threatening to increase food prices.
Now, Democrats trying to win the US midterm elections in November see another new opportunity to address the affordability crisis and turn the situation around after years of losses in states that produce crops and livestock.
The Strait of Hormuz is an important channel for fertilizer, carrying approximately 50% of global nitrogen-containing urea fertilizers, according to the World Bank. Fertilizer InstituteIndustry trade association. The strait has become effectively impassable since President Donald Trump launched the attack, which is now in its third week and appears to have no end in sight.
The closures have sent fertilizer prices soaring just before planting season, potentially making decisions difficult for farmers across the U.S. And this is on top of already low commodity prices that have persisted for years and have eaten into farmers’ margins.
“We’re in uncharted territory,” Matt Frostick, a Michigan farmer who sits on the board of the National Corn Growers Association, said in an interview with CNBC. “It’s like a code red.”
Frostick said he purchased nitrogen fertilizer, which is important. corn cropsAbout $350 per ton in January. The same product is now closing at $600 a tonne, he said.
The questionable agriculture scenario also comes eight months before midterm elections, which could cause Trump to lose control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Democrats, who are trying to win competitive seats in agriculture-heavy states like Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska, are pouncing on higher fertilizer prices, a new example of the affordability issue that is troubling Trump and Republicans.
“There are a lot of people like me in our district who are like, I don’t understand. I don’t understand. It was already hard, and now they’re making it harder, and no one knows why,” said jake johnsonA public school teacher who is running for Congress against incumbent Republican Representative Brad Finstad in Minnesota’s 1st District.
“Our number one thing as a campaign and we want to talk to every person we talk to is that we need ways to make things cheaper,” Johnson said.
The Democrats’ rural plea comes after years of bloody lobbying in rural, agricultural states in the middle of the country. In 2024, Trump won almost every state in the Midwest, except Minnesota and Illinois. They also dominated the county-by-county competition, according to center of politicsFormer Vice President Kamala Harris won 2,660 counties, compared to 451, which were concentrated in the most populous parts of the US.
Democrats want to win over rural America
Turning the tide in rural America has been a longtime goal for Democrats, but it has often proven elusive. In 2018, Democrats in Iowa won 3 of the state’s 4 congressional seats. Now, Republicans control all four. But with Trump’s economic approval declining and Democrats ahead in the generic ballot, Democrats have high hopes this year.
Johnson said farmers in particular are pushing back against Trump The tariff campaign, in which his White House authorized a nearly $12 billion bailout last year. The war now adds a new inflationary wrinkle.
He said, “For me the vote is a vote to end the tariff and it is a vote to end the war.” “We need to start by addressing the obvious harm that the status quo has imposed on us.”
Republican presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump takes the stage during his Iowa Caucus Night Watch Party on January 15, 2024 in Des Moines, Iowa, US.
Evelyn Hockstein | reuters
Meanwhile, Republicans are fighting to pass even more aid to farmers just months after last year’s investment. An additional farmer bailout estimated at about $15 billion was being discussed before the war began to address low crop prices — and lawmakers are now seeking to attach it to a potential Iran supplemental spending bill. The White House is requesting $200 billion to be spent for the war.
“Clearly there’s going to be a complement to the conflict in Iran,” Senator John Hoeven, R-N.D., who leads the Senate Appropriations subcommittee responsible for funding the Agriculture Department, said in an interview.
Hoeven said he expected that to gain approval for such a package in the Senate it would need to include more spending than the war. He pointed to disaster aid that Democrats want and aid for farmers as possible add-ons.
Finding Fertilizer Price Solutions
“The good news is everyone understands what a big problem this is for our farmers,” Boozman said in an interview. “Because of that, everything is on the table. We are considering all the options available, and hopefully we will decide on a plan soon.”
Boozman did not say what those plans would be. His counterpart in the House, Rep. GT Thompson, R-Ark., said Trump is “aggressively” trying to work on reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
Thompson noted Trump’s efforts to “bring other countries to court to enable those transport ships and tankers to pass safely through that narrow strip.”
He also said that any duty on fertilizer should be removed before the planting season.
“In fact we should not be imposing duty on fertilizer or any component,” he said.
Treasury Secretary Scott Besant said Thursday on Fox Business that Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins will “probably make an announcement on fertilizer in the next couple of days.”
Besant said the Trump tariffs largely exempt nitrogen-based fertilizer, which is important for growing corn.
But despite efforts to free stranded cargo ships, opening the strait to allow the flow of fertilizer is a tall order for the administration. And the risks to American farmers and food consumers continue to grow.
“Without strategically prioritizing the delivery of critical agricultural inputs such as urea, ammonia, nitrogen, phosphate and sulfur-based products, the United States is at risk of crop shortages,” Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, said in a recent letter to Trump. “Not only is this a threat to our food security – and by extension to our national security – such production shocks could contribute to inflationary pressures in the US economy.”
Shock to agricultural prices like 2022!
Joe Glauber, former chief economist at the Department of Agriculture under the Obama administration and research fellow emeritus at the International Food Policy Research Institute, said the shock is similar to what happened when Russia invaded Ukraine — but noted that the surge in commodity prices is now missing.
“We hit record levels in 2022,” Glauber said. “But the other thing that was really high in 2022 was grain prices, and so farmers, even though they were paying really high fertilizer costs, they were more or less able to deal with that because they were getting good returns from what they were selling.”
Glauber said farmers are right to be concerned if they are only considering their balance sheets – what they grow and what they sell. But he said the influx in government payments to farmers, as is now believed in Congress, has been much larger in recent years.
“It’s a different story if you include government payments,” Glauber said. “And there’s just been a lot of government payments.”
Frostick, the Michigan farmer, said his goal is to get Congress to pass a “consumer choice” bill that would allow drivers to buy ethanol gasoline, known as E15, year-round. The price of ethanol is generally cheaper than regular gasoline, and this bill would potentially raise prices of the commodity by giving farmers a new market to sell.
And Frostick, while saying he was grateful for the government payment, said the bailout may fall short and he would prefer to make money by selling his crops.
He said, “I would rather make money selling my products than have the government write a check to make me completely healthy.” “It distorts the markets a lot, it can pick winners and losers, and typically when we get checks like this, it’s a pass-through.”