A sustained disruption of traffic through Hormuz would not simply constitute an energy crisis. It would also represent a fertiliser shock (where prices go up dramatically and supply goes down) – and, by extension, a direct risk to global food security.
That’s mostly a problem for countries were almost the entire food base is directly (food, food products, high-fructose corn syrup) and indirectly (chicken and cattle feed) hybrid corn which cannot be grown without fertilizer (as the plant density is too high for normal land to be able to support), i.e. the United States.
Other countries won’t suffer quite as much.
No major country can feed its population without artificial fertilizer.
True.
The US is just even worse off in that regard because of the very high dependency (what I read in the Omnivore’s Dilema was over 70%) of its food supply on hybrid corn.