No Gas, No Food, World Hungry
Imagine waking up one morning and finding that the price of wheat flour, rice, and milk has doubled overnight. Your grocery bag costs twice as much. Farmers in your village cannot afford fertiliser. The government is scrambling. This is not a nightmare. This is exactly what the Iran war could trigger — and it starts with something most of us never think about: natural gas.
How Does Gas Connect to Your Food?
There is a process called the Haber-Bosch process — a scientific method that mixes nitrogen from air with hydrogen from natural gas to create ammonia. Ammonia is then turned into urea, which is the fertiliser that farmers spray on wheat, rice, and maize fields. Simply put — no natural gas, no fertiliser. No fertiliser, no food.
Around 80% of the cost of making fertiliser comes from natural gas. So when gas supply gets disrupted even for a few weeks, fertiliser factories slow down or completely shut. Farmers get less fertiliser. Crops grow weaker. Harvests fall. And your plate gets emptier.
The Strait of Hormuz — A Small Passage, Giant Problem
There is a narrow sea passage called the Strait of Hormuz, located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula. Nearly 20% of the world's LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) and 30% of global fertiliser exports pass through this tiny corridor every single day.
Major countries like Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and UAE export fertilisers — urea and ammonia — through this route to nations across Asia, Africa, and Europe. Now, with Iran's military threatening this passage, ships are scared to pass. Fertiliser is stuck inside the Persian Gulf. The world outside is waiting — and waiting costs lives.
Worst Timing in Farming History
This war has arrived at the worst possible moment for global agriculture. Right now, farmers across the Northern Hemisphere — in USA, Canada, Europe, China, India, Russia — are preparing for the spring planting season. This is the peak time when demand for nitrogen fertiliser is at its absolute highest.
Unlike oil, which many countries store in emergency reserves, no country in the world has a strategic fertiliser reserve. If shipments are delayed even by four to six weeks, farmers will use less fertiliser and the autumn harvest will permanently fall. You cannot redo a planting season. Once that window closes, it is gone.
Your Chicken, Milk and Eggs Are Also at Risk
Many people think a food crisis only affects vegetarians. That is wrong. When fertiliser shortages reduce grain production, the price of animal feed — corn and soybean — shoots up. Livestock farmers operate on very thin profits. When feed prices rise sharply, the cost of chicken, pork, beef, milk, and eggs rises with it. A fertiliser shortage can become a full dairy and meat crisis within just a few months.
India's Mungaru Season Is in Serious Danger
For India, this situation is deeply personal — and for Karnataka and South India, it hits even closer to home. India sources nearly 60% of its total LNG imports from Middle East countries — with Qatar alone supplying over 42% and UAE adding another 11%. This makes India the most Middle East-dependent LNG buyer in the entire world.
If India's fertiliser plants cannot get affordable natural gas, domestic urea production will fall sharply — exactly before the Mungaru planting season. Mungaru is what Karnataka and South Indian farmers lovingly call the Kharif (Mungaru) season — the monsoon-driven planting window arriving around June, when farmers sow rice, ragi, sugarcane, and maize riding the southwest rains. This single season produces over half of India's total food grain. Miss this window, and there is no second chance until next year.
The government will be forced to spend thousands of crores extra on fertiliser subsidies. Every family — from a rice farmer in Mandya to a vegetable buyer in Bengaluru — will feel this burden.
Food in Cold Storage Is Also at Risk
Even food that is grown successfully may not reach your kitchen. Our food system runs on a massive cold chain — refrigerated trucks, frozen warehouses, temperature-controlled ships. As LNG prices surge, running these refrigeration systems becomes extremely expensive. More food spoils before reaching the market. Less supply means higher prices.
Countries Will Hoard, the Poor Will Starve
When prices rise and harvests fall, countries panic and stop food exports to protect themselves — exactly as happened during the 2022 Ukraine war. Wheat, rice, and sugar exports get banned overnight. Nations that depend on food imports — especially in Africa and South Asia — face severe shortages, hunger, and social unrest.
One war. One strait. One gas shortage. And the entire world goes hungry.
(Girish Linganna is an award-winning science communicator and a Defence, Aerospace & Geopolitical Analyst. He is the Managing Director of ADD Engineering Components India Pvt. Ltd., a subsidiary of ADD Engineering GmbH, Germany.)
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views, policies, or position of the publication, its editors, or its management. The publication is not responsible for the accuracy of any information, statements, or opinions presented in this piece.
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LPG crisis: Karnataka temples gear up to stock wooden logs for ‘Prasada’
Bengaluru (PTI): Temples in Karnataka have started preparations to stock wooden logs fearing that the LPG shortage could hamper the ‘Prasada’ preparation and distributions to the devotees.
The looming LPG crisis in the state in the wake of Iran-Israel conflict has made the temple managements jittery.
According to the Akhila Karnataka Hindu Temple Archakas Federation (AKHTAF) president M S Venkatachalaiah, there is no immediate crisis in the temples.
“We have LPG cylinder stock that can last for a week but if this scarcity continues then there will be a problem in serving Prasada (offerings to the deity) to the devotees,” AKHTAF president said.
He added that many temples in the state have started stocking wooden logs to overcome the LPG crisis.
“Our temples have started preparing to store wooden logs to prepare Prasada though currently we don’t have a problem, at least for a week,” Venkatachalaiah told PTI.
Another priest working in a temple belonging to the state Endowment Department said the temples may have to go back to the traditional way of cooking as done in the ancient time using wood.
The LPG crisis has not affected the mid-day meal programme for government school students yet, though there was a meeting in the Education Department to find ways to tackle if crisis deepens, sources associated with the Mid-day Meal programme said.
Meanwhile, the largest partner of the Mid-day Meal programme in the country is Akshaya Patra.
The NGO said they do not depend much on LPG gas cylinder.
“The LPG crisis has not affected us. Our kitchens are steam-based, and we generate steam through boilers which run on electricity. That’s point number one. Point number two—gas is used only for very minor things, mainly for seasoning. That is the tadka,” an Akshaya Patra executive told PTI.
According to him, the NGO has has a gas reserves for about nearly one month across India, though gas is used in very small quantities every day.
He pointed out that the Mid-day meal programme will not be affected because in one or one-and-a-half weeks, schools will close owing to summer vacation.
Akshaya Patra feeds 23.5 lakh children across more than 24,000 schools across India, in 16 states and three Union Territories, he said.
