High fertiliser costs catching up to Asian rice farmers, threatening ability to feed 500 million people

Soaring fertiliser costs have rice farmers across Asia scaling back their use, a move that threatens harvests of a staple that feeds half of humanity

Fertiliser prices have been rising globally due to supply snags, production woes, and more recently Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

Reading Time:3 minutes

A rice farmer works on a paddy field in Agbopura, Sri Lanka. Photo: Reuters

Published: 12:33pm, 19 Apr 2022Updated: 5:26pm, 25 Apr 2022

Soaring fertiliser costs have rice farmers across Asia scaling back their use, a move that threatens harvests of a staple that feeds half of humanity and could lead to a full-blown food crisis if prices aren’t curbed.

From India to Vietnam and the Philippines, prices of crop nutrients crucial to boosting food production have doubled or tripled in the past year alone. Lower fertiliser use may mean a smaller crop. The International Rice Research Institute predicts that yields could drop 10 per cent in the next season, translating to a loss of 36 million tons of rice, or the equivalent of feeding 500 million people.

That’s a “very conservative estimate,” said Humnath Bhandari, a senior agricultural economist at the institute, adding that the impact could be far more severe should the war in Ukraine continue.

Farmers harvest rice crop on the paddy field in Vi Thuy district, Mekong Delta’s Hau Giang province, Vietnam. Photo: VNA/Handout via Xinhua

Fertiliser prices have been rising globally due to supply snags, production woes, and more recently the war, which has disrupted trade with Russia, a big supplier of every major type of crop nutrient.

The surge in fertiliser costs is threatening to stoke food inflation assuming farmers continue to cut back and crop yields suffer. If that happens, global supply chains are likely to take a major hit: Practically every plate of food makes it to the dinner table with the help of fertilisers.

Rice farmers are particularly vulnerable. Unlike wheat and corn, which have seen prices skyrocket as the war jeopardises one of the world’s major breadbaskets, rice prices have been subdued due to ample production and existing stockpiles. That means rice growers are having to deal with inflated costs while also not getting more money for their grains.

Nguyen Binh Phong, the owner of a fertiliser and pesticide store in Vietnam’s Kien Giang province, said the cost of a 50-kilogram sack of urea – a form of nitrogen fertiliser – has jumped three-fold over the past year. He said some farmers have slashed fertiliser use by 10 per cent to 20 per cent because of soaring prices, leading to a lower output.