In 2022, my final year in office, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent fertilizer prices surging several-fold, and farmers across Central America—and around the world—saw production costs spike almost overnight, raising fears of food shortages.
Today those fears have resurfaced. Conflict in the Middle East is rattling energy markets, pushing up the cost of natural gas—the backbone of nitrogen fertilizer production—and exposing once again just how vulnerable farmers and families are to shocks beyond their control. Fertilizer prices have skyrocketed by up to 40%, compromising livelihoods and food security.
This vulnerability is not accidental and it is not cheap either. Governments spend more than $700 billion a year subsidising agriculture, much of it bankrolling the very fertilizers and fossil fuel inputs that make farming so exposed to price shocks. Yet farmers see just 35 cents of real value for every dollar spent.
This is not some distant policy concern. Companies with agricultural supply chains — from food and beverage manufacturers to commodity traders, insurers, and logistics firms — absorb fertilizer shocks through input costs, contract failures, and sovereign credit risk in key sourcing markets.
The estimated $700 billion in annual agricultural subsidies also represents one of the largest untapped pools of patient capital for the agri-food transition: firms that position early in soil health technology, precision nutrient management, and climate-adaptive crop systems stand to capture significant upside as governments increasingly move to align public spending with climate goals. This is not philanthropy. It is the next infrastructure trade.
It is therefore time to reimagine how these billions in public support are used, repurposing them to reduce exposure to shocks in fuel and fertilizer markets, while placing the wellbeing of both farmers and consumers at the center.
Research and fieldwork has shown that this same public funding could instead support soil restoration, integrated soil fertility management, farm diversification, climate-resilient practices, and essential services such as climate-informed advisory systems. Done right, these investments would lower input costs, strengthen long-term productivity, and help protect more than 500 million smallholder farmers worldwide.
Many of these solutions already exist at the local level, developed by smallholder farmers themselves—and with the right support, they can deliver far greater benefits.
Let’s be clear: this is not an argument for cutting subsidies outright, nor for imposing a one-size-fits-all solution on farmers around the world.
In a geopolitical context where countries are seeking greater strategic autonomy, aid and cooperation budgets are shrinking, and many in the Global South remain highly indebted, there is a strong case for rethinking public investment toward approaches that boost productivity, reduce environmental impacts, and strengthen food security.
A just rural transition requires recognizing the diversity of voices across food systems. This is what the High-Level Panel for a Just Rural Transition, led by Clim-Eat aims to achieve. The Panel brings together farmers, policymakers, and civil society to advance practical reforms and shape international policy building on the momentum of past initiatives such as the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change.
Today, 87% of agricultural subsidies are environmentally or socially harmful. The Panel will explore alternatives: smarter subsidies tied to sustainable practices, greater investment in agricultural research, rural infrastructure and extension services, and direct support to help smallholder farmers transition away from fossil-fuel-intensive inputs and methods. Crucially, it is designed so that the perspectives of farmers and frontline communities inform policy from the outset.
In 2026, all three COPs on land, biodiversity, and climate will converge, creating a corridor of political opportunity. From UNCCD COP17 in Mongolia, addressing land degradation and drought intensified by input-heavy farming, to CBD COP17 in Armenia, where governments will review progress on redirecting harmful subsidies, and UNFCCC COP31 in Türkiye, where agriculture, responsible for roughly a third of global emissions, can be brought to the center of climate action, the opportunity is to carry commitments across these forums with enough force to translate them into real change.
Fertilizer prices may ease again, and the headlines will move on. But the opportunity will remain. Political problems have political solutions, if matched with the right ideas and the will to act. For every government that has signed a climate agreement, a biodiversity framework, or a land restoration target, this is the moment to turn commitments into delivery: stronger food security, lower risk and greater resilience, and more sustainable and healthy production systems.
In a world hungry for hope and often short on it, let’s make food—the one thing that brings us all to the same table—a source of shared, win-win solutions.
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