When Supply Chains Become Chains of Control

When the US–Israel war on Iran that began on 28 February 2026 disrupted transit through the Strait of Hormuz, its effects reached fields far beyond the Persian Gulf. Bottlenecks in shipments of raw materials essential for fertilizer production created shortages that drove up crop nutrient prices and boosted profits for globally positioned producers such as the Norwegian chemical company Yara International ASA. While the crisis has largely been framed as a disruption in supply chains, that framing obscures a deeper structural reality. When natural gas prices rise or shipping routes are constrained, fertilizer prices spike almost immediately, and smallholder farmers absorb the shock first. This is not simply a logistics problem but a feature of a food system built on dependency, since farmers rely heavily on external inputs they neither control nor produce. Geopolitical disruptions therefore translate directly into heightened vulnerability at the farm level.

This dependency is not incidental; it is systematically produced. Industrial agriculture has deliberately replaced diverse farming systems around the globe with monocultures that require continuous chemical inputs, while a small number of agrochemical corporations consolidate control over seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides.

The Pesticide Atlas, the global 2022/2023 edition published by Heinrich Böll Foundation, Friends of the Earth Europe, and PAN Europe, is a comprehensive, data-driven report that maps the global impact, trade, and use of synthetic pesticides in agriculture. It highlights the ecological and health consequences of chemical-intensive farming and demonstrates how concentration locks farmers, particularly in the Global South, into recurring cycles of input reliance, narrowing their capacity to adapt to climate change and deepening their exposure to volatile global markets.

This is why Palestine is not a footnote amid a global fertilizer crisis. In Palestine, these global dynamics intersect with a pre-existing architecture of agricultural control that shapes not only exposure to shocks but also the very conditions of agricultural production. Israel’s dual-use classification system severely restricts the import of key agricultural inputs, including many fertilizers containing nitrates or ammonia, on the grounds that they could potentially be used for military purposes. As a result, Palestinian farmers are largely confined to a narrow range of approved inputs, sourced through Israeli-controlled crossings and supply chains. Potassium chloride often remains one of the few accessible fertilizer options, limiting farmers’ access to essential inputs, undermining agricultural productivity, degrading soil health, and affecting long-term food security.

A photo of a flock of sheep grazing in the natural mountains and hills of Ein Qiniya, Ramallah in Palestine, during Spring of 2026, by Mary Deeik.

Alongside these direct restrictions, the long-term dismantling of alternative systems intensifies vulnerability. Palestinian agriculture was historically rooted in integrated ecological practices that sustained soil fertility without reliance on external inputs. Terracing conserved water and prevented erosion, crop diversity maintained ecological balance, and livestock contributed manure that enriched soils. Nitrogen-fixing crops such as legumes replenished fertility naturally, while traditional seed-saving practices preserved crop diversity across seasons. The erosion of these systems has been driven by Israeli policies such as land confiscation, settlement expansion, and movement restrictions. These measures have drastically fragmented Palestinian agricultural landscapes and severed farmers from natural resources, including grazing areas and water sources. As crop-livestock integration breaks down and land fragmentation limits rotation and intercropping, farmers are pushed toward chemical inputs as a necessity rather than a choice. Under occupation, this shift does not simply produce dependency; it binds farmers to tightly controlled supply chains, compounding vulnerability at every stage of production.

Over the past decade, alternative practices have steadily expanded as Palestinians explore pathways to food sovereignty. This is reflected in grounded efforts to reclaim control over production and reduce exposure to external shocks, drawing on agroecological knowledge while continually navigating constraints imposed by occupation. Farmers and local initiatives across the West Bank are producing organic fertilizers and bio-inputs locally, reducing costs. Others are rebuilding direct relationships with consumers, keeping value within local economies.

Recent reporting from UN News illustrates how these dynamics are unfolding in Gaza. Farmers describe a near collapse of livelihoods driven by acute shortages of agricultural inputs and soaring production costs. The absence of fertilizers has contributed to growing food insecurity, as soils damaged by war have become increasingly difficult to cultivate. Agriculture no longer guarantees stable crop yields even when production is possible, with many crops deteriorating due to the lack of essential fertilizers. Rising prices have failed to translate into improved incomes because expenses have inflated. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, around 87 percent of Gaza’s agricultural land has been damaged, pushing many farmers out of production and into dependency on aid. Local initiatives have emerged to confront these challenges, including efforts by agricultural experts in Gaza to produce low-cost organic fertilizers from locally available wild plants such as Urtica, and others who use food waste and manure to restore soil fertility and health.

This enclosure operates not only through agricultural inputs and markets but through a deeper severing of communities from land. Palestine lies within one of the world’s most significant centers of crop wild relatives and biogenetic diversification. Wild relatives of wheat, barley, lentils, and chickpeas continue to grow across its landscapes, alongside a rich diversity of edible and medicinal plants, as living components of an agroecological system historically sustained through close interaction between people, land, and plants. Palestinian ethnobotanical knowledge of wild plants such as za‘atar (Origanum syriacum), ‘akkoub (Gundelia tournefortii), loof (Arum palaestinum), khubbeizeh (Malva sylvestris), and hindbeh (Cichorium intybus) remains embedded in seasonal foraging practice and traditional cuisine. Their nutritional and medicinal value is well known, and their role becomes especially critical under conditions of economic hardship and disrupted supply chains.

This knowledge, held across generations, constitutes a parallel food system that operates largely outside formal markets, an agroecological commons that has long underpinned sovereignty within Palestinian food systems. Whether in Palestine or across the so-called Global South, the result of prevailing agricultural development has been the undermining of local food systems and the consolidation of control in the hands of state-linked corporations. What is at stake is food sovereignty: the ability of communities to define their own food systems, sustain agroecological knowledge, and maintain relationships with the land, amid growing dependency on externally controlled inputs such as fertilizers that further entrench asymmetries and reshape the conditions of production.