A US blockade on Iranian ports could severely hit food and grain imports to the country.
US Central Command (Centcom) said it would allow passage of humanitarian shipments including food, medical supplies, and other essential goods, to the Islamic Republic. However, the blockade – if fully enforced – could impact up to 983,000 tons of grains and oilseeds currently being shipped to Iran, Madeleine Overgaard, Senior Market Data Operations at Kpler, told the Wall Street Journal.
Overgaard argued that Russia – an important grains supplier to northern Iran grain via the Caspian Sea – could provide an alternative but warned that trade is smaller than via the Middle East Gulf trade because the Caspian Sea has shallow entry points.
Also commenting on this aspect, Zanna Aleksahhina, Grains Market Reporter, Expana, said: “Even though Russia has expanded Caspian export infrastructure and market players say shipments to Iran have risen, the route lacks the scale and efficiency of deep-water Gulf trade and cannot fully compensate for disruptions there.”
Iran is also a large buyer of Brazilian corn. Iranian corn purchases from Brazil started very strong in MY 2025/26 (Oct-March) and are so far higher year-on-year (YOY) than in 2024/25. (5.44 million tons vs 4.8 million tons).
“This suggests they were on track to reach a new record in 2025/26. However, imports have since slumped to basically zero in March (since the conflict), and it’s not likely they will return,” said Andrew Kanyemba, Senior Grains Analyst, Expana.
Latest Brazilian customs data shows practically zero tons of Brazilian corn arrived at Iranian ports across March, compared with 300,000 tons in March 2025, Kanyemba highlighted.
As for soybean and soymeal shipped to Iran, last season’s imports are estimated at around 2 million tons each, sourced primarily from South America and Canada. So far, in MY 2025/26, import momentum from October 2025 through to March 2026 has already lagged normal levels, signaling insufficient seed and meal stocks at the onset of the war, explained Nouha Slama, Manager, Oilseeds and Biofuels Analysis, Expana.
“Should a complete blockade of imports materialize over the coming months, Iran faces a severe shortage of feed ingredients, threatening livestock production and food security across the country,” Slama commented.
Ships carrying grains and food items using the Strait of Hormuz must start moving through it rapidly to avoid a food price inflation spike later this year, FAO chief economist Máximo Torero argued, referring not only to Iran but to the Middle East region in general.
“If we don’t follow the crop calendar and we don’t have the inputs in time for planting, that implies producers will have to produce with less inputs, will affect next season and the next half of the year,” Torero said earlier this week on a FAO podcast, also highlighting the negative impacts of high prices for energy, oil and diesel needed for tractors, planting machines, and for processing.
Image source: Adobe
Written by Simon Duke, Zanna Aleksahhina and Andrew Kanyemba
