BY SIBUSISO MNGADI
MBABANE – Eswatini could soon face soaring fertiliser prices, supply shortages and rising pressure on food production if the conflict involving the United States and Iran continues to disrupt global trade routes, Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture Sydney Simelane has warned.
Speaking in an interview with Eswatini TV, Simelane said the country’s agriculture sector was highly exposed to global input shocks, especially fertiliser imports linked to international shipping routes.
“There is definitely going to be a huge impact,” Simelane said, warning that disruptions linked to the Strait of Hormuz would have serious consequences for agriculture in Eswatini. He said around 30 to 40 percent of the fertiliser sourced through South Africa passes through that route, making supply and pricing highly vulnerable.
“The first thing that we will observe is that there will be soaring fertiliser prices,” he said. “There will be a shortage of supply. There will be a price shock. Emaswati will realise that very soon, the price of fertiliser will go up.”
Simelane said fertiliser was especially exposed because it is bulky and is mainly transported by sea. If supply routes remain constrained, local farmers are likely to cut back on usage as prices rise, with direct consequences for yields.
“This is very sad, because as a result of that, we will have reduced fertiliser applications in our crops,” he said. “Farmers will tend to save and use less fertilisers, and as a result, the impact will be that the yield will be far too low compared to what they would have got if they used the right amount.”
He said the knock-on effect would go beyond the farm gate and could threaten the country’s wider food production ambitions.
“We are at a stage as Ministry of Agriculture where we are not looking at food security, but we are looking at food sovereignty,” Simelane said. He explained this as the national goal of being able to produce locally the food the country consumes. He warned that high fertiliser prices and supply shortages could seriously undermine that push.
According to the PS, the pressure could also force some farmers out of production entirely.
“Farmers will be squeezed. They may decide that they are not doing farming anymore, and that will further impact on the food sovereignty that we are talking about,” he said.
Simelane said the economic risk was also significant, noting that agriculture contributes 7 percent to Eswatini’s GDP, while about 70 percent of emaSwati depend on agriculture, particularly at subsistence level. He warned that if the sector is hit hard, food prices could rise further, inflation could worsen, and transport and fuel costs would pile even more pressure on production.
He said the full impact had not yet been felt, but warned that the shock was approaching.
“It is an impact that is still approaching. It’s a situation that we will face shortly in the country,” Simelane said. He pointed to fuel queues already being seen in Mbabane as an early sign of strain, describing them as “just a spillover of maybe the real shock that is still to come.”
Fuel, he added, is also a critical agricultural input, used in tractors, heavy equipment, bush clearing and milling operations. Nitrogen-based fertilisers, which are widely used in crop production, were among the inputs he flagged as a major concern.
The Ministry is especially worried about the next planting season, with Simelane warning that the real impact could be felt around September and October.
“This is a concern for the coming planting season. So around September, October, the impact will be felt,” he said, adding that “some people may decide not to plough at all.”
Asked what government could do to cushion farmers, Simelane said subsidies would be difficult because the national budgeting process had already been concluded and resources were constrained.
“If you look at your point of view of subsidies, they require resources. At this point in time, we have just finished our budgets. Funds have been allocated,” he said, adding that the ministry’s budget had also been reduced because of limited resources.
He said government was instead exploring alternative fertiliser sources from other parts of the world, but cautioned that such options come with delays because products have to be tested for suitability to local soils and crops before procurement can begin.
“The difficulty with that is there has to be specific arrangements before you can actually start buying,” he said. “These challenges need to be sorted out quickly, and we want to make sure that we find these alternatives as soon as possible, so that we don’t end up with a situation whereby the country runs out of food.”
With global uncertainty now feeding into local agricultural planning, the Ministry’s message is that Eswatini may not yet be in the full grip of the shock, but the warning signs are already visible. If the disruption persists, farmers could soon be forced to plant under higher costs, reduced input use and growing uncertainty over the next season.
