Every oil and gas market crisis automatically triggers a fertilizer market crisis. Nitrogen for urea and ammonia is produced from natural gas. When gas prices spiked after 2022, farmers around the world were paying two to three times more for the same bags of fertilizer. But California-based startup Nitricity claims to have found a way out.
How It Works
Nitricity produces nitrogen fertilizer from three components: air (where the nitrogen comes from), water, and renewable electricity — solar or wind. The process is electrochemical synthesis that requires no natural gas at all. An added bonus: instead of conventional industrial waste, the byproduct is almond shell residue — of which California has an abundance.
The company already holds a US patent and is conducting its first commercial deployments. The challenge — making the process scalable and cost-competitive with conventional urea.
Why This Matters Right Now
March 2026 — conflict in the Persian Gulf has restricted tanker transit through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran, a major urea exporter, has temporarily cut supplies. Fertilizer prices have started rising. This scenario has repeated several times over the past decade — and each time it has left farmers completely dependent on geopolitics.
Localized, decentralized fertilizer production from renewable energy is not just a technological novelty — it is a food security question.
What This Means for Ukraine
Ukraine is one of Europe’s largest consumers of nitrogen fertilizers and simultaneously one of the most vulnerable to their price volatility. Technology like Nitricity’s is still expensive and in the pilot phase. But within 5–7 years it could become a real complement to conventional fertilizers, especially for organic producers for whom synthetic nitrogen is entirely prohibited.
For agricultural producers, it is worth tracking: if the technology scales, it could significantly reduce organic farms’ dependence on imported organic fertilizers.
