U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told lawmakers on Wednesday that her department is holding daily calls with the White House, the EPA, and the Department of Homeland Security about surging fertilizer prices, and that the administration would announce both short- and long-term strategies to bring costs down.

The Strait of Hormuz disruption has choked more than 30% of global fertilizer exports, driving a price shock that is squeezing already-thin farm margins and feeding the same inflationary pressure that has pushed gold to record territory. Washington’s scramble to respond reveals how deeply energy-supply disruptions ripple into food costs, consumer prices, and the broader case for hard assets.

The remarks, reported by Reuters, came during testimony before the agriculture subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Rollins said she is also speaking directly with the heads of major fertilizer companies, though she did not name them or specify what actions the administration plans to announce.

The Hormuz Chokepoint and Fertilizer Supply

The catalyst is blunt. Iran’s near-total closure of the Strait of Hormuz has trapped more than 30% of global fertilizer exports, according to Reuters. The Middle East supplies roughly half of global urea and 30% of ammonia, and about 15% of U.S. fertilizer imports flow from the region, as AP News detailed in its reporting on the conflict’s agricultural fallout.

The price response has been sharp. DTN data cited by the Washington Examiner showed all eight major fertilizers rising over the past month, with urea alone up 35%. Tennessee farmer Todd Littleton told AP News he expects to pay $100,000 more for fertilizer this season, a 40% increase from last year.

That is not a rounding error. It is a direct hit to operating margins at a time when farm economics were already fragile.

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Who Is Protected and Who Is Exposed

Rollins framed the damage as concentrated but serious. She told lawmakers that roughly 80% of U.S. farmers locked in their fertilizer purchases last fall, before the Hormuz disruption sent prices higher. That leaves an estimated 20% to 25% of farmers exposed to spot-market pricing during planting season.

“Obviously, the short-term issues are acute and really require significant effort as we work to bring those prices down.”

The distinction matters. For the majority who pre-purchased, the price shock is a future problem. For the minority who did not, the squeeze is immediate. As Newsmax reported, Rollins said the administration is working directly with suppliers to ensure vulnerable farmers can still obtain fertilizer affordably.

But “affordable” is doing heavy lifting in that sentence. American Farm Bureau Federation president Zippy Duvall warned that many farmers who did not preorder fertilizer may not even be able to obtain the supplies they need for spring planting. The problem is not just price. It is availability.

The broader pattern here tracks the same energy-risk undercount that has characterized official economic modeling for years. When a single chokepoint controls a third of global fertilizer trade, the system is not resilient. It is brittle.

Emergency Measures and Their Limits

The Washington Examiner reported that the administration is pursuing emergency steps including waiving the Jones Act and seeking alternative supply routes, including one from Venezuela. Those are real policy tools. The Jones Act waiver, which relaxes domestic shipping restrictions, could lower transport costs for fertilizer moving between U.S. ports. Opening a Venezuelan supply line would diversify sourcing away from the Middle East corridor.

Neither fix is fast. Rerouting global commodity flows takes weeks, and spring planting does not wait. The gap between policy announcement and physical delivery is where farmers get hurt.

Rollins said the forthcoming announcements would cover both short- and long-term strategies. The short-term piece is urgent. The long-term piece is an acknowledgment that the fertilizer supply chain has a structural vulnerability that predates this conflict.

Why Metals Investors Should Pay Attention

Fertilizer prices are not, on their face, a gold story. But the transmission mechanism is direct and well understood. Rising input costs for food production feed into consumer prices with a lag. When fertilizer jumps 35% and farm fuel costs remain elevated, the downstream effect on grocery-aisle inflation is not theoretical. It is arithmetic.

The war-driven fuel cost spike already working its way through CPI is one layer. Fertilizer is the next. And unlike energy prices, which can adjust relatively quickly when supply normalizes, agricultural input costs tend to embed in food prices for a full growing season or longer.

For gold, the setup is straightforward. Persistent, broad-based inflation erodes purchasing power and keeps real yields under pressure. Central banks face a harder path to rate cuts when food and energy costs refuse to cooperate. And when policymakers respond to supply shocks with emergency waivers and intervention rather than allowing price signals to clear, the distortions compound.

Littleton, the Tennessee farmer expecting a $100,000 cost increase, put the human dimension plainly:

“We have had a couple of record losses the last couple years, so everyone’s kind of grabbing at straws anyway, and then to have input prices increase yet again, it just really couldn’t happen at a worse time.”

That is not just a farm story. It is a purchasing-power story. When producers absorb losses, they eventually pass costs forward or exit. Either outcome tightens food supply and lifts prices.

The Broader Inflation Pipeline

The Hormuz closure is not an isolated shock. It sits inside a broader disruption that has pushed oil higher, kept gas prices elevated, and fed the kind of persistent cost pressure that erodes consumer confidence. Fertilizer is simply the latest commodity to get caught in the blast radius.

Consider the chain: energy prices rise because of the Hormuz closure. Fertilizer prices rise because the same chokepoint handles a third of global exports. Farm operating costs rise on both fronts. Food prices follow. And the consumer, already stretched, absorbs another round of inflation that official models may underweight because it originates in a supply disruption rather than demand excess.

This is the kind of environment where gold’s role as a monetary asset becomes most relevant. Not because of panic, but because of math. When the cost of producing food rises 35% to 40% in a single season, the currency’s purchasing power is under real pressure regardless of what the Fed funds rate says.

The daily calls between USDA, the White House, EPA, and DHS signal that Washington understands the severity. Multiple agencies do not coordinate daily on a problem they consider manageable. The question is whether intervention can move fast enough to matter for the farmers who are planting right now.

The collapse in consumer sentiment tied to war-fueled inflation fears is the demand-side mirror of this supply-side story. Producers face higher costs. Consumers face higher prices. And the policy response, however well-intentioned, arrives with a lag that the calendar does not forgive.

What to Watch Next

  • USDA’s forthcoming announcement: Rollins promised action soon but gave no timeline or specifics. The details will determine whether this is a meaningful intervention or a messaging exercise.
  • Jones Act waiver scope: How broad the waiver is, and how quickly alternative supply routes open, will shape near-term fertilizer availability.
  • Food-price pass-through: The lag between fertilizer cost spikes and grocery-shelf inflation typically runs several months. Watch summer CPI components for the signal.
  • Farm Bureau warnings on availability: If farmers cannot obtain fertilizer at any price, the issue shifts from cost inflation to supply shortfall, a more serious problem for food security and prices alike.

The fertilizer crisis is a reminder that inflation is not always a monetary phenomenon. Sometimes it starts with a shipping lane, a war, and a bag of urea that costs 35% more than it did last month. The policy response may ease the worst of the pain. But the structural vulnerability remains, and so does the case for owning assets that do not depend on a single chokepoint staying open.