Russia stops exports of commercial fertilizers

The price of commercial fertilizers on the international market has increased by more than 340 percent since the beginning of 2021 due to the high energy prices, but also due to the fact that both China and Russia recently have limited the export of commercial fertilizers.

See our previous post how this will affect the food production.

In the beginning of December, several exports from Russian harbors were suspended due to the alleged lack of export licenses. The bulk ships were already in the harbors when they got the message.

According to the Russian authorities, the reason for the halted exports was that the exporters did not have the necessary licenses for the trade. The official reason for the stopped export is to curb the strong inflation in the domestic market and to get the cost explosion among Russian farmers under control.

We can thus distinguish that both China and Russia are deliberately acting to reduce the supply of fertilizer, and that it can be viewed as operating the food production to affect other nations. It can be seen as part of the new multipolar world order where the different actors use different means to be able to exert influence in their surroundings.