Measuring the concentration of harmful gases in an underground potash mine at the Usolskiy Potash Complex in the Perm region of Russia in 2017.
Source: Bloomberg
The Big Take
Russia and China Have a Stranglehold on the World’s Food Security
Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine highlighted the role of fertilizers — and who controls them — as a strategic lever of global influence.
The cargo trapped for months at the Dutch port of Rotterdam was so precious that the United Nations intervened to mediate its release. The World Food Programme chartered a ship to transport it to Mozambique, from where it’s being taken by truck through the interior to its end destination, Malawi.
It’s not grain or maize, but 20,000 metric tons of Russian fertilizer, and it can’t come soon enough.