Re:Global rice shortage is set to be the biggest in 20 years
by hollerith on Wednesday April 19, 2023 @10:37AM
(#35628714)
Nitrogen fertilizer is made from natural gas, so maybe the nitrogen fertilizer plants in the EU were shut down to ensure adequate supplies for the EU's more inelastic demands for natural gas.
(More precisely, the natural gas is a cheap source of hydrogen atoms that get combined with nitrogen in the air to produce the fertilizer.)
I believe Russia is also a major fertilizer exporter and nitrogen fertilizers have more or less doubled in price