{"id":121982,"date":"2026-05-19T21:33:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T21:33:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/121982\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T21:33:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T21:33:17","slug":"yvette-cooper-hormuz-blockade-risks-sending-world-sleepwalking-into-food-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/121982\/","title":{"rendered":"Yvette Cooper: Hormuz blockade risks sending world sleepwalking into food crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Foreign Secretary has warned that Iran\u2019s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz could result in tens of millions going hungry as she told an aid summit of the risk of \u201csleepwalking into a global food crisis\u201d.<\/p>\n

Yvette Cooper told an aid conference in London that the global south was paying the highest price as the supply of fertiliser and heating oil remained restricted.<\/p>\n

Markets are already pricing in the detrimental effect this will have on farmers, and the World Food Programme has estimated that 45 million people could fall into acute food insecurity if the conflict does not end by the middle of the year.<\/p>\n

The Foreign Secretary said: \u201cWe meet against the backdrop of the Hormuz crisis, a strait of water through which 90 ships a day used to pass, but for the last three months it\u2019s been more like five.<\/p>\n

\u201cHeating oil for Asia \u2013 stuck in the Strait, fertilisers for Africa \u2013 stuck in the Strait, 20,000 seafarers, 800 ships \u2013 just stuck in the Strait.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe global economy is being held hostage, and the global south is paying the biggest price.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump says talks to resume as standoff escalates over Strait of Hormuz<\/a><\/p>\n

Why is the Strait of Hormuz so vital and how could disruption affect UK bills?<\/a><\/p>\n

The Strait of Hormuz, between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula, has been effectively closed since the US and Israel launched their campaign against Iran at the end of February.<\/p>\n

Tehran\u2019s blockade of the vital shipping lane has sent oil prices spiralling, but has also shut off access to some of the world\u2019s most significant fertiliser factories, threatening to push food prices up as well.<\/p>\n

Cooper warned the summit that the blockade was affecting planting season too, and that damage is already being done that will hit crop yields and send food prices up well into next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe world risks sleepwalking into a global food crisis, and we cannot risk tens of millions of people going hungry because Iran has hijacked an international shipping lane,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She called for faster coordinated action from multilateral development banks and specific support for fertiliser markets to alleviate the impact of the strait\u2019s closure.<\/p>\n

This is a critical time in the agriculture calendar, and Cooper warned that if global partners do not get fertiliser moving, emergency shipments will be needed, not just external investment and technology.<\/p>\n

Subscribe free to our weekly newsletter <\/a>for exclusive and original coverage from ITV News. Direct to your inbox every Friday morning.<\/p>\n

The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) said Cooper was right to sound the alarm.<\/p>\n

John Denton, ICC secretary general, said: \u201cFertiliser is a time-critical input: if shipments do not move from the Persian Gulf soon, farmers will miss application windows, crop yields will be lower and food prices will inevitably rise.<\/p>\n

\u201cHigher prices are already forcing farmers to delay or cut fertiliser purchases \u2013 demand destruction that will translate directly into weaker harvests.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the same time, production outages and shortages of essential inputs risk leaving key nutrients unavailable in sufficient quantities ahead of major planting seasons later this year and into next.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Foreign<\/p>\n

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper delivers her speech at the Global Partnerships Conference at Woolwich Works in south London. Credit: PA<\/p>\n

Yvette Cooper was speaking at the Global Partnerships Conference in London, convened to set out a new approach to development amid cuts to overseas aid budgets.<\/p>\n

Last year, the UK cut its target for aid spending to just 0.3% of GDP, while Donald Trump\u2019s administration effectively gutted the US aid agency.<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s summit, co-hosted by the UK and South Africa, is expected to set out an approach based on \u201cpartnership\u201d and technical advice rather than cash payments.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the summit, development minister Baroness Jenny Chapman said: \u201cCountries want to have more control, move beyond aid, attract investment, strengthen their own health and education systems and take charge of their own futures.<\/p>\n

\u201cTraditional development finance alone cannot meet that call, indeed it never could. Nor can it respond to the scale of today\u2019s challenges.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to bring new ideas and a broader coalition of partners to the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

From Westminster to Washington DC – our political experts are across all the latest key talking points. Listen to the latest episode below…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Foreign Secretary has warned that Iran\u2019s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz could result in tens of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121983,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[28],"tags":[31384,13316,19974,266,15155,102,34,101,12728,2680],"class_list":["post-121982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-strait-of-hormuz","tag-food-insecurity","tag-food-prices","tag-foreign-secretary","tag-global-economy","tag-global-south","tag-hormuz","tag-iran","tag-strait-of-hormuz","tag-world-food-programme","tag-yvette-cooper"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116603388243776232","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}