KIAMBU COUNTY, Kenya (AP) — Monica Kariuki is about ready to give up on farming. What is driving her off her 10 acres of land outside Nairobi isn’t bad weather, pests or blight — the traditional agricultural curses — but fertilizer: It costs too much.
Highlights
- Russia’s war in Ukraine has pushed up fertilizer prices that were already high, made scarce supplies rarer still and squeezed farmers, especially those in the developing world struggling to make a living.
- Conflict also has driven up the already-exorbitant price of natural gas, used to make nitrogen fertilizer.
- The U.N.
- Food and Agriculture Organization said last week that its world food-price index in March reached the highest level since it started in 1990.
- Fertilizer crunch threatens to further limit worldwide food supplies, already constrained by the disruption of crucial grain shipments from Ukraine and Russia.
- The squeeze on food supplies will land hardest on families in poorer countries.