8th April 2026
In most of the UK, food inflation is something people read about in headlines.
In Caithness, it's something you feel in the aisles of Tesco, in the shrinking range at the Co‑op, and in the weekly shop that somehow costs more every month.
The latest global shock with a surge in fertiliser prices and the wider economic fallout from the Iran war and is about to push those pressures further still. And as ever, the places furthest from the centres of power feel the tremors most sharply.
The story begins with fertiliser, the invisible backbone of modern farming. Few people outside agriculture realise just how dependent our food system is on nitrogen fertiliser — or how vulnerable that makes us. When the Strait of Hormuz became a conflict zone, the world’s supply of urea and ammonium nitrate was suddenly squeezed. Prices that had been stable for months shot upward. UK farmers, who import the majority of their fertiliser, found themselves facing bills hundreds of pounds higher per tonne. For a cereal farmer in East Anglia, that’s a blow. For a crofter or small‑scale grower in the Highlands, it’s the difference between breaking even and giving up.
Higher fertiliser costs don’t stay on the farm. They ripple outward. Farmers either pay the inflated price and pass it on later, or they cut back on fertiliser and accept lower yields — which also pushes prices up. There is no scenario where the consumer escapes unscathed. And in a region like Caithness, where transport costs already inflate the price of every loaf, every litre of milk, and every bag of carrots, the impact lands harder than it does in the Central Belt.
Then there’s fuel. Red diesel is the lifeblood of tractors, harvesters, and generators nd has surged in price again as global oil markets react to the conflict. Every stage of the food chain becomes more expensive: ploughing, planting, harvesting, refrigeration, haulage. Even the final leg — the lorry run from Inverness to Wick — becomes costlier. When fuel spikes, the Highlands pay twice: once at the pump, and again at the checkout.
But the most overlooked factor is the disruption to global shipping. The Strait of Hormuz is not just an oil route; it’s a corridor for fertiliser, animal feed, and container traffic. Insurance premiums for ships have risen. Some carriers are avoiding the region altogether. Delays ripple through supply chains, and the UK — which imports nearly half its food — is exposed. For Caithness, where imported goods already arrive at the end of the longest supply chain in Britain, any disruption magnifies the fragility.
Put these pressures together and the outcome is predictable: food prices will rise again. Bread and cereals will go first, followed by vegetables, then dairy and meat as feed costs catch up. Imported goods — fruit, tinned staples, cooking oil — will feel the squeeze too. The poorest households, already stretched by energy bills and transport costs, will feel it most acutely.
What makes this moment particularly difficult for the Far North is that it comes on top of years of structural strain. The decline of local shops, the centralisation of supply chains, the loss of small abattoirs, the closure of local producers — all of it leaves communities more dependent on long, fragile routes from the south. When global shocks hit, Caithness has fewer buffers left.
And yet, there is a deeper truth here: rural Scotland has weathered worse. The post‑war years, the oil crises of the 1970s, the foot‑and‑mouth outbreak, the 2008 crash — each time, communities adapted. But resilience is not automatic. It requires support, investment, and a recognition from policymakers that the Highlands are not just a distant corner of the map but a region whose challenges are amplified by geography and whose contribution to the nation’s food security is undervalued.
The Iran conflict may feel far away, but its effects are already shaping the price of the weekly shop in Wick. Fertiliser costs, fuel spikes, and shipping disruption are not abstract economic indicators; they are the forces that determine whether families can afford fresh food, whether farmers can stay afloat, and whether rural communities can thrive.
If there is a lesson in all this, it is that global instability always finds its way to the kitchen table and it reaches the Far North first.