FEATURE Food and job security/Iran conflict
A worst case scenario is that more countries are drawn into the conflict. China’s leaders have, for example, made clear it won’t tolerate the US blocking trade to China, be it oil or other strategic supplies.
Uncertainty isn’t helped help by President Trump’s chaotic and disruptive approach. A war he said would last no more than four weeks is now well into its third month.
The peace process, when it exists, is chaotic, very much the Trump style. It creates deep uncertainties and a hopes rise/hopes fall news cycle, up and down with energy prices.
The International Energy Agency says the closure of the Strait and war damage to the regional, oil, gas and other infrastructure is the biggest disruption to energy markets in that agency’s history. One oil and gas market export set out a brief and ominous picture to Landworker.
“Details of the level of war damage to the oil and gas infrastructure is very sensitive” he said. “What we know is that key installations have been heavily damaged.
“Some of the damage to oil installations are possible to repair, if hostilities cease, in between six to nine months.
Capacity might be partially recovered by the end of the year.
“There is a lot of damage to ports in the region which could also be repaired relatively quickly. That isn’t the case with the Liquefied Natural Gas infrastructure.
“Fewer than 10 companies in the world can even build the equipment that has been destroyed. I’ve seen estimates that it will take 18 months to three years to fully repair the damage.”
Even if hostilities were ended entirely and very soon, the impact lingers.
In late March the International Monetary Fund (IMF) looked at what might be a less certain, more nervy peace. A grey zone between peace and full-on war.
“If the world may settle somewhere in between’, the IMF suggested then “tensions linger, energy stays costly, and inflation proves hard to tame – with ongoing uncertainty and geopolitical risk. Much depends on how long the conflict lasts, how far it spreads, and how much damage it inflicts on infrastructure and supply chains.”
It warned of lingering damage outside the region. “The interruption of crop- nutrient supplies from the Gulf comes just as planting season begins in the northern hemisphere, threatening yields and harvests through the year and pushing food prices higher.”
26 uniteLANDWORKER Summer 2026
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[Make] life easier for those seasonal migrant workers employed when we can’t recruit locally. We could make
existing seasonal visas transferrable between employers, for
example and not being tied to only one
Monique Mosley, Unite FDA vice chair and small holder
Back in the UK, in early April in her Mansion House speech in the City of London, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper calmly set out her own thoughts. A politician not known for over-statement said this, “It might be tempting, even comforting, to think that the Iran crisis is a once-in-a- generation shock.
But this is the third time in six years that international events have sent economic tidal waves around the globe, hitting Britain's shores – the Covid pandemic, the invasion of Ukraine and now the Iran conflict.
“Instability and volatility are becoming increasingly chronic and turbulence is the new normal. The new reality we face did not begin with the war in Iran, nor will it end with a reopened Strait.”
All photos: Getty Images
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