Myanmar’s agrifood systems have faced a wide range of challenges in recent years, including disruptions in banking and financial services, constraints in accessing foreign exchange, reduced public service delivery, widening conflict and insecurity, increasing displacement and migration, climate shocks, and a major earthquake. The Iran War introduces a new layer of risk. In 2024, 27 percent of globally traded oil, 20 percent of liquefied natural gas (a key fertilizer feedstock), and up to 30 percent of global fertilizer trade passed through the Strait of Hormuz (Glauber 2026). Disruption of this trade has increased prices and raised the risk of shortages of these essential inputs.
Key Findings - Read the Report
- The Iran War has driven up fuel and fertilizer prices in Myanmar and created the risk of shortages in some parts of the country. At the end of June, diesel prices were 34 percent higher and petrol prices 57 percent higher than at the end of February, while reference prices for urea in mid- and late June were 49 and 28 percent higher, respectively, than last monsoon season.
- Myanmar’s rice value chain depends heavily on fertilizer for paddy production and on fuel for land preparation, irrigation, harvesting, transport, and processing.
- Alongside an expected El Niño, these higher costs of fuel and fertilizer are likely to lower yields and rice production in the 2026 monsoon season.
- Higher costs are likely to reach consumers, raising the price of rice, the country's main staple, and worsening food security at a time of already high humanitarian need.