Rice prices surge over 47% since start of Iran war, Hedgeye reports

US rice prices have climbed more than 47% since the Iran war began on February 28, 2026, according to Hedgeye. That’s not just a commodity chart spiking. It’s the cost of feeding billions of people lurching upward in real time.

The conflict between the US and Israel on one side and Iran and its allies on the other has done exactly what military analysts warned it would: choke off the Strait of Hormuz, one of the most critical maritime bottlenecks on the planet. And when global shipping arteries get clogged, the price of everything that moves by sea goes up. Rice, it turns out, is no exception.

How a war in the Middle East raises the price of rice

The Strait of Hormuz handles a huge share of global oil and LNG trade. When military strikes and retaliatory actions make that passage riskier, shipping costs spike. Insurance premiums for vessels transiting the area balloon. And the knock-on effects cascade through every supply chain that touches maritime freight.

Fertilizer prices have surged roughly 40% amid these disruptions. When it gets 40% more expensive, farmers either eat the margin or pass the cost along. Most can’t afford to eat it.

India, the world’s largest rice exporter, has seen its shipments decline in the first four months of 2026 compared to the prior year. Basmati rice exports to Gulf markets have been particularly hard hit, which makes geographic sense: those shipments travel directly through the conflict zone. Reduced Indian exports tighten global supply at exactly the moment when demand hasn’t budged.

The food inflation picture gets uglier

Rice feeds roughly half the world’s population. A 47% price increase in a staple grain isn’t an abstract data point for commodity traders to puzzle over. It’s a food security crisis materializing in slow motion.

Food inflation in affected regions has been climbing steadily since the conflict began. Countries in South and Southeast Asia that depend heavily on rice imports are feeling the sharpest pain.

Multiple ceasefire attempts have failed as of late August 2026, and the conflict shows no signs of winding down. That means the supply chain disruptions driving these price increases aren’t a temporary shock. They’re becoming a structural feature of the current global economy.

What this means for commodity markets

For agricultural commodity markets, the Iran war has introduced a level of geopolitical risk premium that hasn’t existed since the early days of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2022. That war sent wheat and fertilizer prices soaring. This one is doing something similar to rice.

The roughly 40% increase in fertilizer costs isn’t just affecting rice. It’s raising the production cost floor for virtually every crop globally.

The trajectory of rice prices from here depends almost entirely on the trajectory of the war itself. Every failed ceasefire attempt extends the timeline of elevated shipping costs, rising insurance premiums, and constrained Indian exports. And every month that passes with fertilizer prices up 40% is another month where the economics of growing rice get worse for producers worldwide.

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