Wheat dodged Hormuz, but summer crops face the input crunch

The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has shifted from a shipping problem to an agricultural one — and summer crops now bear the brunt. While a recent Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report warned of Egypt’s dependence on wheat imports, it seems the crop was largely shielded from the Strait of Hormuz shocks, according to the experts we spoke to. Nearly four months after the crisis, the real danger for Egypt’s food security lies in a global energy and input-cost crunch, analysts warn.

Protected by pre-war planting

This season’s wheat was insulated by timing. Egypt’s wheat is planted in November, and the critical nitrogen window — the jointing stage, when grains-per-spike is set — falls in January through early February. That window closed before the war began, Shaza Omar, an independent agricultural economist and former senior USDA agricultural specialist, tells EnterpriseAM. The winter crop was fertilized when a 50-kg sack of urea cost around EGP 270, before the war pushed it past EGP 1.5k, Hesham Soliman, president and GM of Mediterranean Star Trading, tells us — meaning this season’s crop was largely insulated on timing alone.

A strong season: Government estimates suggest Egypt’s wheat crop will exceed 10 mn tons this season, an increase of more than 6% over last year, says Joe Glauber, senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute and former chief economist at the US Agriculture Department.

This hasn’t reduced import reliance, though: The government procured around 5 mn tons oflocal wheat — roughly half of the 9.7-10 mn tons needed for the subsidized bread program alone — leaving the state to import the rest. Soliman expects total 2026 wheat imports, including private-sector purchases, to top 13 mn tons, with 7.5 mn tons delivered by mid-June — almost half of which was purchased by the government. He expects import prices to ease toward USD 245-250 per ton — down from USD 257 — as Black Sea exporters clear a backlog of grain originally destined for Iran.

Higher for longer

Wheat itself isn’t getting more expensive — but the cost of fertilizer, fuel, and freight is. Experts are split on whether that cost will reset. Glauber notes that “urea prices have now fallen back to near pre-war levels,” but Omar and Soliman are less optimistic about the long-term trajectory. Omar predicts “the structural floor for urea [will] likely settle 20-25% above 2025 averages, absent a comprehensive regional ceasefire and full restoration of Hormuz trade flows.” She notes that the World Bank confirmed urea prices rose nearly 46% m-o-m between February and March 2026 — beyond the FAO’s own 15-20% projection — and argues such a market elevation doesn’t simply revert once logistics partially normalize. Soliman lands in a similar place, expecting global urea to settle closer to USD 550 per tonne rather than return to the USD 420-450/tonne pre-crisis range.

The energy link is structural. The blockade pulled roughly 20% of global LNG supply offline, compounded by Qatar’s force majeure, and high energy prices compound across the entire agricultural value chain, Glauber says. If the Hormuz crisis sustains elevated fuel and logistics costs, Egypt will absorb a higher import bill to cover its structural shortfall — making global market dynamics a larger threat than local farmer sentiment.

Summer crops step in

The clearest near-term hit is an immediate summer problem, not a winter wheat one, Soliman says. Wheat is shielded by government procurement, he argues, but crops like cucumbers, strawberries, and oranges are priced on open-market dynamics and need the same market-rate fertilizer that sits behind the subsidy gap. He expects that prices — which consumers are already calling high — to look more like a new floor, rather than a peak. Farmers are already pivoting toward summer crops that need minimal synthetic nitrogen, such as green corn grown for dairy silage, to dodge soaring input costs.

The government has also moved on price and distribution for summer crops since the crisis began. The Agriculture Ministry pushed 8.2 mn sacks of subsidized fertilizer (valued at EGP 2.37 bn) into governorates nationwide at EGP 290 per 50-kg sack of urea and sulfates (EGP 285 for nitrates) — prices that were raised in March to absorb shipping, fuel, and storage inflation. Supply Minister Sherif Farouk is also negotiating long-term Russian wheat contracts for a backup reserve.

A separate, slower crop shift bears on the import bill. Glauber notes northern-hemisphere farmers are pivoting to protect margins, with March planting intentions in the US indicating 3% less maize and 4% more soybeans, a less fertilizer-intensive crop. If enough wheat-growing regions abroad divert acreage, global supply will tighten and the price Egypt pays as a buyer will rise. Omar frames the domestic version: “The substitution risk is more likely to manifest as area diversion away from wheat into faba beans or berseem clover — both nitrogen-fixing legumes that fit the winter window and need significantly lower synthetic nitrogen,” though she places that effect at the next planting decision in October-November, not this season.

Egypt’s export hand

The same cost story has a flip side: Egypt is also a major seller of fertilizer, and that export pull shapes how much stays home for its farmers. Egypt ranks seventh globally in urea production, outputting roughly 12 mn tonnes annually. About 40-50% of that output is earmarked for export, which is worth about USD 2.8 bn. With Gulf producers trapped behind the blockade, Egyptian exporters — whose Mediterranean and Red Sea ports bypass Hormuz — were positioned to take the European and African market share. Any disruption to Egyptian output would remove nearly 500k tonnes a month from export availability, Omar notes, underscoring how central Egypt has become to global nitrogen supply.

State intervention: Companies facing a roughly fourfold jump in gas costs resisted supplying the local market at fixed prices and secured a larger export allocation, tilting the split to around 65% export versus 35% domestic, Soliman says. The government responded weeks later with a three-month USD 90 per tonne export duty on nitrogen fertilizer starting from early May, before ditching the flat fee in favor of a dynamic 10% duty. Glauber expects the export advantage to fade as Gulf producers re-enter the market following the strait’s reopening, with Egypt’s share drifting back toward pre-war levels.

Securing the season

The export pull is the backdrop to the state’s distribution push. Paper records are no longer accepted; farmers must use a digital “smart farmer card” at any of the 5.5k point-of-sale machines across 27 governorates. But the ration doesn't match the crop, Soliman says, since a farmer gets only three subsidized sacks per feddan when the crop needs seven or eight.

Reworking the subsidy: Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said during a press conference in Beheira (watch, runtime: 35:37) on 13 June that bread subsidies cost the state EGP 140 bn a year, of which roughly EGP 35 bn — 25% — goes to wealthy households that don’t qualify, prompting a planned phase-out of physical bread handouts and a shift to a cashbased system. Bread prices through state outlets will stay fixed, but eligible families will receive money deposits into e-wallets or support cards, Supply Minister Sherif Farouk said, CNN Arabic reports. The amounts will be calibrated against inflation and the cost of a food basket.