Geopolitical Snacks: The growers stopped the fruit. The ships still can't move.

Hey Geo Fam,

My week has been chaotic, yet the thing I keep noticing is stillness: ships full of fertilizer that aren't moving through the Strait of Hormuz, and avocado orchards in Michoacán where small growers decided to stop picking, though harvesting resumed on Nov 5. Cocoa is the third story, which gives us three to unpack below. Let's keep things moving.

In this issue

● 🚢 Story one: The fertilizer that isn't sailing

● 🥑 Story two: Michoacán's avocado growers stop picking

● 📊 Daily Dose of Data: More avocados, less money

● 🍫 Story three: Cocoa

● 🕵🏽‍♂️ What We're Tracking: Canada cocoa powder, beef imports, rice tariffs, sugar and coffee, soymeal

● 📅 What's coming: Five dates to circle

Story one · The Gulf

The fertilizer that isn't sailing

Photo: aqua.mech on Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

What I'm seeing

Fertilizer shipments through the Strait of Hormuz fell to zero in September and stayed there through October, according to tracking data that Syz Group highlighted in Fertilizer Daily, a trade paper that covers fertilizer markets. Before the war, about 29% of global urea trade, nearly half of seaborne sulfur and around 21% of ammonia trade moved through that water, per S&P Global.

Kpler, a firm that tracks ship cargoes, puts Middle East fertilizer exports down roughly 70% to 75%, with 994,000 tons in September against 3.41 million tons a year earlier, as its analyst told the Abu Dhabi newspaper The National, and while oil found detours, fertilizer mostly has not. As of Nov 2, the UN plan for a fertilizer corridor was still waiting on a U.S. and Iran agreement, and Iran said that it could reopen the strait within two days if Washington meets its conditions, Al Jazeera reported.

Who feels it first

Sulfur is the tightest spot, with its price more than doubling to above $1,000 a ton. That is feeding through to phosphate fertilizer, which is up 25% to 30%, and Mosaic has idled phosphate operations, including its South Fort Meade site in Florida. Urea is holding up better because China and the U.S. are exporting more.

The person who feels this first is the small farmer who buys fertilizer by the sack, not by the ship, because when a sack costs more you spread less or plant less, and the harvest tells the story months later. Kpler said it plainly: today's fertilizer gaps "may inevitably show up in reduced harvests and higher food inflation downstream next year."

Why Does This Matter?

For brands: this is a 2027 crop cost story that starts now. If your products lean on wheat flour, corn, rice or soybeans, ask your suppliers how much of next season's cost is already locked in, and which of your SKUs sit closest to fertilizer-hungry crops. Our supply chain risk tools can map that for you.

From our blog: The Strait of Hormuz is holding your food hostage

Story two · Mexico

Michoacán's avocado growers stop picking

Photo: Alejandro Duarte on Unsplash, via Mexico Business News (Nov 9, 2026).

What I'm seeing

Small growers in Michoacán stopped harvesting on Oct 23, in demand for a minimum farmgate price of 35 to 45 pesos a kilo, about $1.86 to $2.39, FreshFruitPortal reported. They reportedly got around 13 pesos at the time, dramatically lower than their asking price, which is why they called the strike. The result? Of the 1,100 containers meant for the U.S. border in one week, only about 600 were expected to go, El País reported.

Michoacán supplies up to 90% of the Mexican avocados sold in the U.S., and Mexican fruit is about 98% of the U.S. market. Picking restarted on Nov 5. On Nov 2 it was still suspended with no price deal, though some packing houses were offering growers prices from Jalisco, the neighboring state and the only other one cleared to ship to the U.S., as a way to get fruit moving, Markon reported that day. APEAM, the growers and packers association, had said it expected the state's plant health boards to reopen on Tuesday, Nov 3, so harvesting could restart gradually, MiMorelia reported.

Who feels it first

The growers felt it long before the strike. From January to August, Mexico shipped 33.7% more avocados, but the average export price fell 63.2%, from $3.80 to $1.40 a kilo, FreshPlaza reported, and they are also pushing back on VELAGRO, a new state digital platform they say adds cost and paperwork.

When you ship a third more fruit and bring home less than half the money, a strike is not a surprise, it's simple math done by families who have worked these orchards for generations, not by the packers or the importers.

Why Does This Matter?

For brands: if avocado is in your guacamole, dips, dressings or ready meals, expect allocations and loading delays now that picking has restarted, because the fruit still has to be packed, inspected, trucked and ripened. Treat the grower's price as a supply risk, not only a cost line. Our AI supply chain manager can flag which of your products depend on one region.

From our blog: Supply chain disruption in food: what 2026's volatility means for ingredient sourcing

Daily Dose of Data

More avocados, less money

From January to August, export earnings fell 44.5%, from $2.6 billion to $1.4 billion, while volume rose to about one million tons, so shoppers saw cheaper fruit while the orchards got the bill.

Story three · West Africa

Cocoa

Photo: public domain via Pixabay, as used by Barchart (Nov 2, 2026).

What I'm seeing

Côte d'Ivoire's port arrivals were about 51,000 tonnes in the week ending Nov 1, against 90,000 a year earlier, the lowest for that week in at least five years, according to the brokerage ADM Investor Services (Nov 2). The commodities broker StoneX expects El Niño to push 2026/27 into a 64,000 tonne deficit. Yet cocoa stocks in warehouses certified by ICE, the futures exchange, sit at a 2.5 year high of 3,694,205 bags, per the market data site Barchart (Nov 2).

Chocolate sales fell $33.1 million from a year earlier, with beans moving slowly, warehouses full and demand softer.

Who feels it first

Look at Nigeria. Its processors pay EU duties of 6.1% on cocoa paste and 4.2% on cocoa butter, while raw beans enter duty free, and Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire ship the same products duty free. "We say we want to add value, but the trade status with the EU makes it cheaper to ship raw beans," Felix Oladunjoye of the Cocoa Processors Association of Nigeria told the Lagos newspaper BusinessDay (Nov 5). Ghana, meanwhile, has shipped about 2,000 tonnes of cocoa mass to China since 2025 under zero tariffs, reported China's state newspaper People's Daily (Nov 9). Where the processing happens decides where the jobs and the margin stay.

Why Does This Matter?

For brands: cocoa is a trade policy story now. Ask suppliers where your butter and powder are processed and which origins carry a duty into each market. Our AI chief procurement officer can compare origins side by side.

From our blog: The chemistry of chocolate: how cacao becomes a CPG ingredient

🕵🏽‍♂️ What We're Tracking

1. Canada cocoa powder gets a 50% tariff. Since Oct 30, cocoa powders from Canada carry an extra 50% U.S. duty under Section 338, while Canadian corrugated cartons, plywood sheets and some plastics came off the list, J.M. Rodgers reported, and a New Jersey cheese importer has also sued over the Canada tariffs.

2. Cheaper beef imports are running late. Of the 300,000 tons of lean beef trimmings allowed in at a lower tariff from September through November, only 59,423 tons had arrived by Oct 19, about 20%, and ground beef averaged $6.79 a pound in September, against $6.32 a year earlier, Fortune reported.

3. U.S. rice growers ask for 65% tariffs. The USA Rice Federation wants tariffs of up to 65% on rice imports from every origin, on top of existing rates of 12.5% on Thai rice and 10% on Indian rice, S&P Global reported.

4. Sugar up, coffee down. Raw sugar gained 9.8% in October as heavy El Niño rains slowed Brazil's harvest and center-south output fell 27.1% in the first half of October from a year earlier, while robusta coffee lost 6% in the month as Vietnam's harvest began, and Expana cut its Ivory Coast cocoa forecast by 40,000 tons to 1.83 million, Reuters reported via Mint.

5. Argentina eyes Brazil's soymeal seat in Europe. EU deforestation rules start Dec 30, and Europe's feed makers warn that up to 4 million tons of Brazil's soymeal, about 17% of its exports, could be shut out, while Argentina's crushers say they can easily fill that gap, pointing to a traceability system that follows soy and beef to the port, Reuters reported. Two Mercosur neighbors are chasing the same buyer.

📅 What's coming

Five dates to circle

● Fri Nov 6: the world food price index for October lands, from the FAO.

● Tue Nov 10, 8:30am ET: U.S. inflation for October, including grocery prices, from the BLS.

● Thu Nov 12: NOAA's next El Niño update, which matters for sugar, cocoa and Peru's fishery.

● Wed Dec 30: EU deforestation rules start for large and medium companies selling cocoa, coffee, soy, cattle and more into Europe.

● Thu Dec 31: Mexican avocado packers must buy from certified orchards to qualify for tax deductions, per FreshPlaza.

Journey is the intelligence infrastructure for product, ingredient, supplier and packaging data across the consumer industry.

From the Journey blog

● The Strait of Hormuz just moved your Q3 gross margin: how oil and shipping costs travel through a food P&L.

● Indigenous fruit and economic needs: who earns what when a local fruit goes global.

● The Pie: Cocoa came down. Candy didn't.: why shelf prices lag the futures market.

● Shifting global supply chains: why regional sourcing keeps coming back.

Stay sharp, Geo Fam 🌱🌎

Antonio Romero, LATAM Growth & Indigenous Partnerships

Free reports and white papers: journeyfoods.io/reports