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War Inflation at the Dinner Table

This is one of those moments where geopolitics quietly reshapes what we pay at the grocery store.

The conflict in Iran has many facets beyond a simple military battle. What is happening in the Middle East has economic consequences that stand to have an immediate and perhaps lasting effect on all of us, around the world. We’re facing higher prices for our energy and thus our food, as well as a substantial disruption to normal trade patterns.

The Immediate Problem – Trade Flows from Oil to Food

The location, the Strait of Hormuz, has become part of our daily lives of late. A narrow, 33-kilometer-wide waterway connecting the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea is the backbone of Middle East trade. Wheat, corn, rice, soybeans, sugar, and animal feed all flow into the Middle East through the Strait, and oil and fertilizer flow out to support global farming.

If the Strait slows, the world doesn’t just lose oil; it loses the inputs that make modern food production possible. The Strait is a critical waterway to the world for a variety of nations – Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, and notably. Shipping has halted because of attacks, mines, and soaring insurance costs. This slows or blocks food and oil imports and exports while raising global transport costs.

All Roads Lead to Oil

However, energy dominates the trade flows.

Approximately 27% of global oil, 20% of liquified natural gas, and about 25% of global fertilizer is exported through this channel. The natural gas from Saudi Arabia is used to make fertilizer, which in turn is used for corn and wheat in the U.S. and then exported back to the Middle East. It is a circular situation.

It’s a substantive reminder of just how critical this passageway is to anyone who likes to stay warm in winter or have food on the table. The entire world has a stake in assuring the free flow of goods through these waters.

Food Insecurity

But for the United States and our food system, the value chain doesn’t stop there.

The importance of the Strait of Hormuz to the U.S. extends beyond the traditional concept of petroleum.

Arabian Gulf nations rely on imports of grains and oilseeds for their food needs.

Saudi Arabia, for example, imported roughly 14 million metric tons of grain each year, from 2016 to 2022.

Ukraine exported about 17 million metric tons of corn and wheat through the Black Sea corridor in 2022 to 2023.

Fertilizer for Farming

Fertilizer is not optional, it underpins roughly half of global food production. When it tightens, food supply follows. The Strait is a major pathway for imports of products critical to our fertilizer needs – not just the natural gas needed to produce nitrogen fertilizers but also phosphates and sulfur, and half of all global urea exports.

Fertilizer production is also energy intensive, so higher natural gas and oil prices further reduce supply.

About half of global food production depends on fertilizer, meaning shortages today can translate into smaller harvests months later.

The larger spoken worry so far in agricultural circles centers on the flow of essential nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur to make phosphorus. The Middle East supplies over one-third of all global nitrogen fertilizer, according to the American Farm Bureau.

As supplies are choked off, farmers face substantially higher prices for this essential input in modern farming. Another key fertilizer ingredient is phosphorus, where the Gulf countries produce about 20% of the global supply.

A critical question will be how much of the U.S. farmer fertilizer was priced before the conflict and how much product is available as the conflict continues over time.

The Implications for the U.S. Food System

U.S. food prices are likely to rise modestly but persistently, not because America lacks food, but because energy, fertilizer, and transportation costs have jumped due to the conflict. The impact shows up first in gas and freight, then in meat, grains, and processed foods, and later in produce and dairy if fertilizer shortages persist.

For farmers alone, when the cost of their diesel fuel goes up by 20% right before spring planting, that eats into their already slim margins. The relationship between diesel prices and farm profitability shows the vulnerability of farmer income, especially today, with a 20% increase in diesel prices. A farmer attempting to maintain profitability must either absorb these costs or attempt to pass them along to buyers. Which depends on the crop, and the buyers, might not be feasible.

Higher energy costs obviously will spread through almost every segment of our food value chain. Modern food systems rely heavily on fuel—for tractors, irrigation, refrigeration, processing, packaging, and transport. As oil prices surge above $95 per barrel following the conflict, these costs began feeding directly into food prices.

Fertilizer prices will spike, but it might take a season of farming for the impact to be felt at the grocery store. Corn, wheat, soybeans, and animal feed are fertilizer intensive. Higher farm input costs reduce profit margins. Finally, farmers eventually raise prices or reduce output.

This effect takes months, meaning grocery prices may continue rising even if fighting slows.

Meat, dairy, and eggs are especially vulnerable because livestock producers are hit with higher fuel costs and higher corn and soybean prices to feed their animals and birds. Animal feed accounts for 50–70% of meat production costs, so increases there ripple quickly into beef, poultry, dairy, and egg prices.

The U.S. can expect that chickens and eggs will have faster price increases because it doesn’t take as long to grow them. Beef and dairy will have a slower but longer-lasting price increase.

Escalation Around the Strait of Hormuz

The situation has recently escalated further, with the Strait of Hormuz effectively restricted and at the center of a high-stakes standoff. President Trump has threatened to strike Iranian power infrastructure if the waterway is not reopened, while Iran has responded by warning it would fully close the strait and target energy infrastructure across the region if attacked.

The result is a rapidly intensifying cycle of threats and retaliation, with commercial shipping already disrupted and energy markets reacting immediately. Oil flows through the strait—responsible for roughly 20% of global supply—have been significantly constrained, pushing prices higher and increasing volatility across global markets.

In other words, this is no longer a hypothetical risk—the disruption to energy and trade is already underway, and the downstream effects on fertilizer, transportation, and ultimately food prices are now in motion.

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Fun with Corn! The Shocking Scale of Global Crops

To My Dirt to Dinner readers:

Combine a dank, cold winter with an aging, housebound man, and you most likely will see some odd behavior. Some very odd behavior.

In my case, that behavior is a reversion to an old, old habit, ingrained in me over many long years of following agriculture. God help me, but I actually read some of the reports and studies produced by our government about different aspects of our food system.

Well, somebody has to do it.  Otherwise, we’re wasting an awful lot of tax dollars.

Our marvelous Department of Agriculture produces some amazing reports, based upon reams and reams of data its minions collect regularly.  People like me actually look forward to seeing many of them. They keep nerds comme moi occupied and up to date on how much food we produce, how much we sell, how much we store, and so on. They help us see how we’re doing in providing the food security that we all want.

Mostly, the reports and data tell us we’re doing a pretty darn good job of producing enough food to feed the 8.3 billion people walking the earth today. Maybe that’s all the average person really needs to know from the USDA reports. Maybe that, and a subtle reminder about the incredible productivity and commitment of farmers and ranchers here in the United States – and around the world, for that matter.

I won’t bore you, my loyal readers, with another of my dry, dusty deep dives into planted acreage, base acres, yield trends, reserve stocks and on and on and on. But when USDA’s Global Production Report hit the streets a few days back, it struck me that we might sit back as Average Joes and Janes and just marvel at the reality behind those incredible numbers.

Serious students of agriculture today talk at length about the abundance of grains and oilseeds, here in the United States and on a global scale. And well they should.  We’re reaping the benefits – and the costs – that come from farmers and ranchers doing their jobs all too well.

The latest USDA report, for example, puts 2025-26 projected global corn production at an astounding 1,295 million metric tons. The United States alone accounts for 432 million metric tons. USDA’s report confirms that we continue to see record crop after record crop in recent years.

Why do we grow so much?  Because we need it.

Sounds like great news, right?  After all, corn is a cornerstone commodity – a crop absolutely essential to our modern food system. Corn also contributes to our energy needs as a key stock in ethanol production. It even winds up in things made of plastic and the cosmetics that keep me looking good even into my 70s.

But by far and away, corn is vital to feeding humans and animals. These veritable mountains of grain and oilseeds mostly go into feeding the 227 pounds of red meat and poultry each American eats every single year. Just in the U.S. alone, we process approximately 32 million cattle, 9 billion chickens, and 140 million hogs. And around the world, 40% of both U.S. corn and soybeans get exported to feed the 1.5 billion pigs, 332 million cattle, and 74 billion chickens. These figures don’t even account for the additional amounts required to feed the chicks, calves, and piglets until they are fully grown.

Ditto for soybeans. As our nation’s most valuable agricultural crop, soybeans provide the foundation for countless animal feeds and a host of human food products. Soybean meal is highly sought after around the world to feed expanding animal herds and flocks. Soybean oil is a cooking staple. Soy milk and tofu depend upon the humble soybean to even exist. And like their corn brothers and sisters, soybean farmers help provide key stocks for biodiesel, plastics and a multitude of other purposes.

It’s little wonder, then, that we see a global soybean crop for 2025-25 of nearly 427 million metric tons. Brazil will contribute about 180 million metric tons of that total.  The United States will kick in another 116 million metric tons. Yes, that also is another record year of global production. The world needs the humble soybean, and farmers almost everywhere are anxious to provide them.

But when does too much of a good thing become a problem?  Ask any corn farmer today for an answer.

When supplies exceed demand, economic trouble follows close behind. USDA makes one point abundantly clear – we are awash in some of our most important cornerstone commodities, like corn and soybeans.

Because of oversupply, farmers have to fight ever harder for foreign markets, often against intense and growing competition from other farmers around the world.  Energy policies become ever more important. Government assistance in any and all forms begins to play a role in market dynamics. For many, off-farm income becomes an increasingly important part of economic survival.

In farming circles, there’s an old, old saying: the cure for low prices is low prices.

That is, if the price available in the marketplace falls too far, farmers turn to other crops, helping restore a closer balance in supply and demand over time. The same government and private market outlook reports talk optimistically of a tightening in corn markets, as hungry countries such as China and prosperous Asian nations step up imports of corn and other key commodities.

But the follow-up question remains critical within the farming community, too: When? How long before that balance is restored, and how do I survive economically in the meanwhile? After all, Brazil and other highly productive nations are competing aggressively to capture any growth in demand. My banker apparently doesn’t speak Spanish. Manana doesn’t seem to satisfy him when he asks for my operating loan payment.

That’s enough half-way serious thinking in agro-economics. The point is, the over-supply issue is one big, big reason why so many in the agricultural community continue to pay such close attention to the USDA reports. We’re all looking for signs that some kind of balance in supply and demand is emerging…that there’s real and timely hope somewhere down the road for the stronger prices farmers need to remain profitable.  Profits are essential if farmers are to stay in the business of providing us with the food (and energy and other consumer products) we need every day.

Agricultural data in gee-whiz terms

To appreciate just how serious all this is, let’s stick with corn as an example of just how big the numbers really are. The numbers all strike me as what I call “gee whiz” facts – simple information, expressed in genuine, everyday language, that gets my attention and makes me stop and think, even for just a moment, about what those numbers really are trying to tell me.

What does 1.3 billion metric tons of corn actually look like?  How do I begin to grasp the enormity of the number?

Fans of Mike Myers and the Austin Powers movies probably would be more inclined to look at those numbers for “S & G” purposes.  If you get that, enough said.  If you don’t, just move on anyway to what follows.  Let’s call it: Fun With Corn.

Just how much corn is 1.295 billion metric tons?

Okay, buckle up for the answer to that question. It will boggle anyone’s mind. After all, feeding and supplying essential products to a world of humans and animals is big, big job.

Imagine the largest structure you can. I immediately thought of the old Louisiana Superdome (now Caesar’s Superdome) – at 3.3 million cubic feet, the largest domed structure in the world.  It boasts a diameter of 680 feet – or more that two football fields.

Now the math, simplified.  A metric ton of corn is about 40 cubic feet. (Okay, 39.37 for you pedantics.) That means it would take 83,820 metric tons of corn to fill the Superdome.  So, we would need about 5,000 Superdomes (okay, 5,183) just to store U.S. corn production…and 15,460 Superdomes to store the world’s annual corn production.

Now let’s take it down to the agriculture world.

A typical on-farm storage silo can hold up to 4,000 tons, although most probably would be a good bit smaller.  Mason City, Iowa, boasts a behemoth grain bin 156 feet high and 165 across, holding 2.2 million bushels, or 55,800 metric tons of corn.  Its builders call it the largest grain bin in the world.

Again, do the math.  We would need about 7,750 of these giant facilities to hold the U.S. corn crop – and over 23,000 to hold the global corn crop.

Or think about the ships needed to handle just the amount of the corn crop that the United States exports.

We’re on track to export a record 83.5 million metric tons of U.S. corn in the coming marketing year, or about 20 percent of total production.

Panamax class ocean-going vessels carry 60,000 to 80,000 deadweight tons. Even assuming we use the top end figure, we would need over 1,000 such vessels to handle U.S. corn exports alone. The average Panamax class vessel will be a touch under 1,000 feet long (965 feet), so the nose-to-tail line of the vessels needed to handle all U.S. corn exports would stretch almost 190 miles – the distance from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.

Gee whiz.

How much corn is that per person?

Now let’s get personal. Imagine you suddenly had all your share of the corn crop delivered to your front door.  The math says every American man, woman and child would have an equal share of the U.S corn crop of 1.242 metric tons, or roughly 40 bushels, equal to 2,240 pounds in weight.

Imagine Grandma dragging her ton of corn off the front porch and into the house.

What could you do with it? You could use it for food, or maybe some other household purpose. But you can eat only so much corn on the cob or creamed corn before growing very, very tired of it.  And besides, the vast majority of our corn is feed corn, not food corn.

So the better option might be to sell it and save the money, or use it to buy something you really want.

USDA places the farm-gate price for corn at $4.10 per bushel. So what do you want to do with your $164, if you sell?  Maybe 56 gallons of regular gas? Or 25 pounds of hamburger?  How about three weighted hula hoops for exercise, and a low-fat latte to go with them?  It’s your call.

How many different ways is corn used?

Other than food and feed, how do I use corn every day? Or do I simply leave well enough alone and allow corn to work its wonders for my life on its own?

God bless the fine people at the Nebraska Corn Board.  They have compiled an amazing list of various ways corn is used today.  Marvel at just some of them:

  • Toilet paper
  • Drywall
  • Toothpaste
  • Crayons
  • Diapers
  • Spark plugs *
  • Hand soap & sanitizer
  • Aspirin
  • Rubber tires
  • Fireworks
* Corn has a high melting point, making it possible to fashion it into a ceramic-like material  that insulates spark plugs from intense heat. Who knew?

Corn is money – really.

References to corn as a form of currency or barter date far, far back – even to The Bible.

“Corn money” has been a common term used to describe the use of corn as a unit of currency – a mechanism for buying and selling goods. Why? Because in early, largely agrarian-based societies, corn was common and universally used and valued. Modern commodity exchanges essentially continue the association – providing an updated value for corn and other commodities important to society.

But in today’s modern world, cash and credit cards have proven to be easier to carry around than sacks of corn.

Why do we call things “corny”?

Merriam Webster defines “corny” first as “mawkishly old-fashioned; tiresome, simple and sentimental.  The word in connection with actual corn is a secondary meaning.

The etymology of corny is described as follows:

  • It’s been a term of derision only since the 1930s, when something that was “corny” or “cornfed” or “on the cob” was rustic, countrified, old-fashioned, or behind the times – and hence trite or hackneyed.
  • It first was used by jazz musicians, who called a style of playing “corny” if it was outmoded or worn out.

See if that doesn’t make you also wonder about how and why we use the word “cheesy.” Maybe if it stays cold and rainy, I’ll make that the subject of my next letter.

By the way, feel free to send me your favorite corny joke. I use ‘em all the time and always look for new ones.

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Processed Foods: Healthy or Harmful?

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If you’ve read nutrition headlines lately, you’ve probably seen “ultra-processed foods” thrown around with increasing urgency, most likely framed as the dietary villain of our era.

And it’s easy to point a finger at it: the CDC recently reported that more than 50% of calories consumed by Americans come from ultra-processed foods (UPFs). And making matters worse? Kids aged 18 and under consume even more, with almost 70% of their daily calories from UPFs.

But what does “UPF” really mean? How does it differ from regular or minimally processed foods? And more importantly, how do these varying levels of processed foods fit in a modern food system where convenience, safety, shelf life, and affordability matter so much to all of us?

Defining Food Processing

Let’s start with a quick reality check: almost all food is processed in some way.

Processing simply means altering a food from its original state. This includes freezing, drying, pasteurizing, fermenting, milling, cooking…even washing.

Whether it’s organic bagged spinach, canned tomatoes, or frozen blueberries from a supermarket or farmers’ market, these products are all indeed processed.

Before the advent of convenience foods, like potato chips and candy bars, food was processed to ensure safety and stability.

Specifically, processing helps reduce pathogens, extend shelf life, and enhance digestibility and nutrient absorption, making these practices a critical milestone for public health.

For instance, processing milk via pasteurization dramatically reduced milk-borne illness in the early 20th century and remains one of the most important food safety advances in public health. And canning expanded food access and strengthened global food security, especially during World War I.

And food processing isn’t a recent innovation…it’s been around for thousands of years.

We’ve ground grains into flour, fermented milk into cheese and yogurt, dried meats, pickled vegetables, and pressed olives into oil to provide a safe food supply, all without refrigeration or modern sanitation.

The Food Processing Continuum

Where the conversation becomes more nuanced is in the distinction between the various degrees of food processing. To dig into this further, we’re going to use the NOVA classification system, a research framework that groups foods based on how much industrial processing they undergo.

Developed by Brazilian nutrition scientist Carlos Monteiro and his colleagues at the University of São Paulo, the NOVA system sorts foods into four tiers: minimally processed, processed ingredients, processed foods, and ultra-processed products. It’s now widely used in public-health studies examining how heavily processed diets relate to chronic disease risk.

So, let’s go into each tier a little more:

  • Unprocessed and minimally processed foods are closest to their natural form: whole meats, washed produce, frozen vegetables, eggs, plain yogurt, and raw nuts. Processing here mainly preserves freshness and safety.
  • Processed culinary ingredients are used in combination with other foods to improve flavor, shelf life or nutrient absorption: oils, butter, lard, sugar, and salt. When used carefully, these ingredients create nutritionally balanced meals.
  • Processed foods move further along the spectrum but still look like the original food source: cheeses, freshly baked breads, tinned seafood, plain oatmeal, and unsweetened plant milks. These foods are combined with additional ingredients, additives, or refining steps for taste and convenience.
  • Ultra-processed foods (UPFs), also known as highly processed foods, are foods created from a distinct formulation of ingredients, in which the end product does not naturally resemble its original food sources. UPFs include soda, shelf-stable treats, instant noodles, sweetened oatmeal,  potato chips, and ready-to-eat meals. These products are typically made from refined substances extracted from foods (oils, starches and flours, protein isolates) plus additives like emulsifiers, stabilizers, colorings, and flavor enhancers and sweeteners (ingredients not commonly found in culinary settings) to make them more appealing.

Findings on UPFs & Dietary Habits

Though the bad-for-you food target seems to blur across all processed foods, the focal point of recent research is set on ultra-processed foods. These UPF products are optimized combinations of sugar, fat, salt, and texture that have been shown to drive overconsumption.

A growing body of epidemiological research links high intake of ultra-processed foods with chronic disease risk. A major review summarized by Stanford Medicine found convincing evidence that diets high in UPFs are associated with increased risk of cardiovascular mortality, obesity, Type 2 diabetes, anxiety, and depression.

Furthermore, the American Heart Association, the National Institute of Health, and other researchers have recently linked overconsumption of UPFs to cardiometabolic disease and all-cause mortality.

But can we pin these illnesses solely on UPFs? Or can we find a place for these products in our diets, if we choose?

Diets anchored in whole or minimally processed foods, complemented by strategically used processed items, consistently correlate with better long-term health outcomes.

Rather than framing the issue as ultra-processed vs. minimally processed, nutrition scientists have found that our overall dietary patterns drive long-term outcomes, not a single type of food. Even Stanford researchers stress that occasional consumption of ultra-processed foods isn’t what drives risk…chronic overreliance is.

Processing Food for Purpose

It’s easy to focus on the risks in today’s food headlines, but processing has also played a powerful role in protecting public health and expanding access to nutrition. In fact, many processed and highly processed foods provide real benefits, as emphasized by the FAO:

  • Food safety: Pasteurization and sterilization prevent microbial illness.
  • Food access: Shelf-stable foods improve food security and disaster readiness.
  • Nutrition delivery: Fortified cereals and enriched grains address nutrient gaps.
  • Medical nutrition: Meal replacements and protein formulas support patients and aging populations.

There are practical considerations, too. Beyond the science, there’s real life. Most of us are juggling work, school schedules, budgets, and limited time…these realities shape what ends up on the dinner table. And using processed food products to manage all these competing needs can be an effective way to create nutrient-dense meals for your family. For instance:

  • Frozen vegetables can be more nutritious than fresh produce that spoils.
  • Rinsed canned beans can make high-fiber and high-protein diets more accessible.
  • Nutrient-dense packaged foods, like whole-grain pasta and tomato sauce, can reduce preparation barriers that might otherwise lead to skipped meals or reliance on fast food.

The Bigger Reset

The larger takeaway from the processed foods research is less about eliminating UPFs and more about recalibrating your current food choices. So rather than eliminating processed foods altogether, most experts recommend being aware of your consumption and making meaningful swaps over time, so your new dietary habits stick.

Like the new dietary food pyramid that encourages us to consume whole foods, experts advise us to choose veggies and fruits; processed whole grains; nuts, seeds, and legumes; and minimally processed proteins as the foundation for a healthy diet. UPFs like sugary drinks, packaged snacks and sweets, and processed meats should be reduced over time.

So, if UPFs currently comprise half of your caloric intake, strive to split those calories with lesser processed items. For instance, if you drink two sodas a day, consider substituting one of those sodas with seltzer and a splash of fresh fruit juice.

So instead of asking, “Is this ultra-processed?”

A more useful question might be, “What ingredients and nutrients are in this product? And how often is it on my plate?”

Processing itself is not the villain – it is a tool. Processing can preserve nutrients…or dilute them. It can improve safety…or introduce excess sugar, sodium, and additives. Its impact depends on how it’s used within our broader food system and our daily eating habits.