April 2026  ·  Strait of Hormuz Crisis  ·  Agricultural Fertilizer Supply Chain

HORMUZ
FERTILIZER
SHOCK

Country Vulnerability Index — v4

The Strait of Hormuz is the world's most consequential maritime chokepoint for fertilizer trade. The nations surrounding it — Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iran, and Iraq — collectively export a dominant share of global urea, ammonia, and potassium fertilizers through its 33-kilometre navigable channel. Its current closure, brought on by conflict between the United States and Iran, will have a catastrophic impact on the global agricultural supply chain.

This index asks a precise question: given that disruption, which countries face structural food security failure — and which can absorb the shock? It covers 121 countries after applying minimum import thresholds and excluding the Hormuz countries themselves, micro-states, and commodity trading hubs. It is a relative vulnerability ranking for a specific crisis scenario, not a general food security index.

The methodology combines three independent structural dimensions — Vulnerability, Resilience, and Adaptability — each constructed from primary trade, agricultural, and financial data (UN Comtrade 2023, FAOSTAT 2023, IMF WEO April 2025, World Bank 2023, USDA ERS/PSD 2023). A timing multiplier adjusts final scores for crop calendar proximity as of April 2026.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This index should be considered exceptionally optimistic. It assumes that producer nations will not block exports, global trade elsewhere will continue as normal, and that no farmers will be priced out of production by increased input costs. Furthermore, this index does not cover the increase in transportation costs brought on by the simultaneous oil shock from the closure of the strait. Also, the index does NOT cover industrial output or other macroeconomic effects, only agriculture supply chains.

121 countries ranked 3 structural axes 13 component variables v4 — April 2026 Author: Solus

Index Formula

Aggregation structure & weighting rationale
Final Score
SCORE = [ Axis 1 + Axis 2 + Axis 3 ] / 3 × Timing Multiplier
Each axis is scored 0–1 (0 = most exposed / weakest, 1 = most resilient / strongest). The timing multiplier is a scalar in [0.80, 1.00] applied after averaging. Arithmetic averaging was chosen over a geometric mean: the multiplicative structure catastrophically penalises any single weak axis regardless of strength elsewhere. Missing values are imputed at the dataset median — unknown ≠ bad.
Axis 1 decomposition
Axis 1 (Vulnerability) = 0.60 × Exposure + 0.40 × Transmission
Exposure measures physical routing through Hormuz. Transmission measures how rapidly a price shock propagates through a country's food system to population-level insecurity.

The Three Axes

Component variables and weights
Axis 1  ·  0.60 × Exposure + 0.40 × Transmission
VULNERABILITY
How directly and severely does the shock reach a country's food system? Exposure captures how dependent a nation is on fertilizer and LNG flows through the straight of hormuz; transmission captures how intensively agriculture depends on that fertilizer and how quickly price signals reach the population.
Exposure sub-score
  • Hormuz Fertilizer Dependence50%
  • Supplier Concentration (HHI)20%
  • Upstream Input Dependence15%
  • Hormuz LNG Exposure15%
Transmission sub-score
  • Food Expenditure Share 30%
  • Yield Gap from Optimal30%
  • Crop Mix Sensitivity25%
  • Urban / Rural Ratio15%
Axis 2
RESILIENCE
What financial and physical buffers can absorb the shock? Foreign exchange reserves, fiscal capacity, and existing food stocks determine how long a country can sustain imports at elevated prices or substitute domestically. Income-based floors correct for systematic distortions in reserve-currency issuing and major financial centre economies.
  • FX Reserves (months of import cover)35%
  • Fiscal Balance (% GDP)35%
  • Food Reserves (weighted days of supply)30%
Food reserves excluded (not imputed) for 46 countries with no USDA PSD or FAOSTAT data; FX + Fiscal renormalized to 50%/50%. Russia: FX excluded entirely (~$300B frozen); axis computed from Fiscal + Food only.
Axis 3
ADAPTABILITY
What structural escape valves exist? Domestic ammonia production, diversified supplier relationships, caloric self-sufficiency, and flexible crop systems reduce dependence on the disrupted supply chain.
  • Domestic Ammonia Capacity (feedstock-adj.)30%
  • Caloric Self-Sufficiency (IDR) 20%
  • Alternative Supplier Diversity20%
  • Crop Substitution Flexibility (Shannon H)15%
  • Input Reduction Tolerance10%
  • Port / Infrastructure (LPI)5%

Score Distribution & Tiers

121-country final distribution · v4
Tier Score Range Count Interpretation
COOKED ≤ 0.486 22 Structural failure likely regardless of government response
CRITICAL ≤ 0.541 35 High probability of food security crisis; needs rapid external support
STRESSED ≤ 0.585 19 Significant disruption, price shocks, rationing likely but manageable
EXPOSED ≤ 0.643 22 Feels the shock, absorbs it with difficulty; no famine risk
INSULATED > 0.643 23 Minimal real-world food security impact
Tier thresholds are set at the 10th, 32nd, 67th, and 87th percentiles of the actual score distribution — relative rankings within this sample, not absolute food security standards. The score distribution has a mean of ~0.57 and σ ≈ 0.08.

"Insulated" does not mean unaffected — it means the structural food security impact is minimal relative to other countries in the sample. This index is designed for a specific crisis scenario. It is not a general food security index.