Italy’s agri-food sector is bracing for a potential new wave of cost pressures as the escalating conflict in the Middle East — and mounting tensions between the United States, Israel, and Iran — threatens to unleash a fresh energy shock with direct consequences for the country’s food production chain. The warning came from Coldiretti, Italy’s largest and most influential farming organization, during a major mobilisation event where approximately 5,000 farmers gathered to voice concerns over the sector’s mounting vulnerabilities.
Addressing the assembly, Coldiretti Secretary General Vincenzo Gesmundo drew a stark comparison to frame the gravity of the current geopolitical environment. “Italy is living through a phase it has not experienced in eighty years,” Gesmundo said. “The international scenario linked to the crisis in Iran risks having extremely severe repercussions for families and businesses, starting with the explosion of energy costs and raw material prices. A spike in oil and gas prices would translate immediately into higher utility bills for citizens, and into cost increases across agricultural diesel, greenhouse heating, chemicals, and fertilisers.”
A REPEAT OF THE UKRAINE SHOCK?
Coldiretti’s concern is rooted in a well-documented precedent: the cascading effect of the Russia-Ukraine war on energy and input costs, the full impact of which, the organisation argues, has yet to fully unwind. “Unfortunately, the risk of a new energy shock is concrete,” said Coldiretti President Ettore Prandini. “We are still carrying the weight of increases that never fully reversed following the war between Russia and Ukraine. Over the past four years, fertiliser prices have risen by 46% and energy costs by 66%.” Prandini warned that any further disruption to global energy markets would compound those still-elevated baselines, with direct knock-on effects for food producers.
FERTILISERS AT THE HEART OF THE SUPPLY RISK
Central to Coldiretti’s concern is the geographic concentration of fertiliser and chemical input production in regions now caught up in geopolitical instability. According to the organization, more than a quarter of the world’s fertiliser supply originates from areas currently affected by the tensions. “Any interruption in supplies would have a direct impact both on costs and on product availability,” Prandini said. “The consequences would be inevitable: rising management costs along the entire agri-food chain and, in cascade, higher prices for citizens and consumers.”
FOOD INFLATION DATA UNDERSCORES THE STAKES
Coldiretti’s data, processed on the basis of figures from Italy’s national statistics institute Istat, paints a sobering picture of how energy shocks translate into food price inflation. Annual average food inflation stood at just 0.6% in 2021. It surged to 9.1% in 2022, following the onset of the Ukraine war, and climbed further to 10% in 2023 — a trajectory the organization is determined to prevent from repeating.
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