GENEVA, Oct 3 (Reuters) – The United Nations is pushing to cut the price of fertilizers to avoid a “future crisis” of availability, said a senior U.N. trade official who is involved in talks aimed at boosting the export of Russian fertilizers, including ammonia.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has fueled a global food crisis and soaring fertilizer prices, according to the United Nations. Russia and Ukraine are key global exporters of grain, while Russia is also one of the largest exporters of fertilizers.

“If we are not able to bring fertilizer prices down, the crisis of affordability that we have today will be a crisis of availability tomorrow, and that is what we are working on right now,” said Rebeca Grynspan, secretary-general of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

“To avert a future crisis we need to bring fertilizer prices down,” she told reporters in Geneva.

Russia is one of the world’s largest suppliers of potash, phosphate and nitrogen fertilisers – key crop and soil nutrients – producing 13% of the global total. Fertilizer exports from Russia fell by 7% in the first half of 2022.

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