Free up fertiliser supplies to avert global food crisis, Yvette Cooper urges

Global fertiliser supplies must be freed up within weeks to avoid disaster, with harvests suffering and food prices rising, the UK’s foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper , has said. The war in Iran has frozen shipments of fertiliser through the strait of Hormuz, creating a supply crunch that has already damaged farming in the UK , Europe and the US and is having its worst impacts in the developing world, where farmers cannot afford the higher prices now being charged. “The world is sleepwalking into a global food crisis,” Cooper said. “We cannot risk tens of millions of people going hungry because one country has hijacked an international shipping lane.” Spring is the crucial planting time – if farmers in the northern hemisphere cannot be assured of fertiliser supplies now, the damage will play out over the next year. “Iran’s continued closure of the strait of Hormuz while the agricultural clock is ticking shows why we need urgent global pressure to get the strait reopened, fertiliser and fuel moving, and ease the costs of living pressures,” Cooper said before a conference of governments in London to discuss overseas aid and development. “This crisis is affecting developed and developing countries, the private and public sectors alike,” she said. “It shows why we need a new approach to global partnerships, to drive international development to prevent crises in the first place. …