The impact of the war in the Middle East has taken effect most immediately as a global event rather than as a regional conflict. Since the first co-ordinated strikes by the US and Israel on Iran, the world has been enjoined in a collective state of anxiety and uncertainty.
It is now commonly accepted that the global fuel crisis is more than a temporary adjustment. Rather, there is a deeper and more systemic risk that is reverberating through supply chains that sustain everyday life. As oil prices rise, so too do the costs of producing and transporting food.
At the centre of this systemic risk is the Strait of Hormuz, a passageway for oil, liquefied natural gas (LNG) and fertiliser exports. As much as 20%–30% of global fertiliser exports, including key nutrients for crop production, pass through this narrow waterway. When that artery narrows, global agriculture feels the squeeze.
Since the beginning of March 2026, the impact of the conflict on the passageway has already driven global fertiliser prices higher and tightened supplies worldwide.
For South Africa, the risk is not abstract. It is a structural vulnerability. The country imports roughly 80% of its fertilisers from the Middle East. Disruptions in the global supply of fertiliser, be it through conflict, shipping constraints or price volatility, translate directly into higher input costs for local farmers, leaving local agriculture exposed to supply shocks. At the same time, rising fuel prices increase the cost of production, processing and transport across the entire food value chain.
The results are almost predictable. The presiding state of fuel price hikes and energy uncertainty only add to existing vulnerabilities and signal a larger looming crisis: higher production costs for farmers, higher transport costs for food and ultimately higher prices on supermarket shelves.
Elevated prices are almost certain to have a downstream effect on food availability and affordability.
This moment is particularly critical. Higher global prices for energy and fertilisers mean that farmers face higher costs and heightened uncertainty just as planting decisions for many crops, such as wheat, barley and many vegetables for the 2026–27 season, are being made. Elevated prices are almost certain to have a downstream effect on food availability and affordability.
Yet our national exposure extends beyond fertiliser. The country is reliant on imports for key staples and inputs, including wheat, cereals, oils and oilseeds, coffee, tea and spices, some meats, agricultural chemicals and certain food commodities. Together, these dependencies leave consumers exposed and highly vulnerable to international price volatility.
But the real issue is not only global supply instability; neither is it only external.
The real issue is how global pressures interact with internal structures, especially with concentration within South Africa’s own food system.
A relatively small number of firms dominate fertiliser imports, food processing and the retail of food in South Africa. In such a concentrated system, cost increases can move rapidly through the value chain, often with limited transparency and few buffers. Farmers face rising input costs. Consumers face escalating food prices. And in between, concentrated market power determines how those pressures are distributed.
This is precisely why the national inquiry into the food systems of South Africa, led by the South African Human Rights Commission, is of such timely significance.
As the inquiry prepares for its second phase, it shifts focus to input suppliers, farmers, processors, lobby groups and retailers. It does so at a time when the stakes could not be clearer, in a global moment of heightened urgency. The recent fuel price hike is not an isolated event. It is part of a chain reaction linking geopolitics, energy, agricultural inputs and ultimately food insecurity.
Key questions now come sharply into focus: how exposed is South Africa to external shocks due to its reliance on imported inputs? Equally, how does concentration in fertiliser supply, food processing and retail shape the way these shocks are absorbed or passed on?
Ultimately, the inquiry must confront a fundamental issue: who carries the cost when global crises hit? Is it corporations, farmers or households?
Without pre-empting the outcomes of the investigation, one conclusion is difficult to ignore. If the burden is consistently borne by consumers and small-scale producers, then the problem is not only external. It is fundamentally structural.
The convergence of a fuel hike and a global fertiliser shock exposes the fragility of a food system that is both import-dependent and highly concentrated. It raises urgent, difficult but necessary questions about diversification, local production, market regulation and food sovereignty.
Food security cannot be treated as separate from energy, trade, or market structure. The price of bread, maize meal and vegetables is shaped as much by global oil routes as by local rainfall and, most importantly, by who holds power within the food value chain. Because what begins at the fuel pump does not end there. It travels through farms, factories and freight corridors until it reaches every household in the country.
And unless South Africa confronts the concentration and structural vulnerabilities embedded in its food system, that cost will only continue to rise.
- Ntuli is a commissioner of the South African Human Rights Commission
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