Key takeaways

•The Iran conflict is disrupting Afghanistan’s supplies of food and other key items, sharply increasing import risks and price pressures.

•The country’s extreme import dependence magnifies shocks, leaving households highly vulnerable to trade and fuel disruptions.

•Climate stress and rising returnee demand compound risks, worsening an already severe food security crisis.

Now in its ninth week, the Iran war has sparked rising energy prices, heightened shipping and insurance risks, and disruptions along key trade corridors, increasing pressure on global supply chains. As these economic consequences continue to reverberate, the plight of Afghanistan illustrates the serious risks the conflict poses to regional economies and food security.

Afghanistan may be unique in its multiple vulnerabilities to these forces. Along with other regional landlocked economies, it relies on Persian Gulf countries not only for imports, but to serve as essential transit corridors linking domestic markets to maritime trade routes and global suppliers. Disruptions affecting these nodes are unlikely to generate an immediate threat to global food availability, yet still extend well beyond their immediate geography, shaping the availability, cost, and reliability of food supplies in downstream economies that lack alternative trade routes or domestic buffers.

Meanwhile, the country’s internal challenges, including climate-driven impacts on agriculture and, over the past two years, the return of approximately 5.2 million people—equivalent to about 10% of the country’s total population—are putting still more pressure on food supplies and prices. This post analyzes Afghanistan’s current economic predicament and its potential implications for food security.

Import dependency and disrupted trade routes

Afghanistan represents a particularly acute case of import dependence. As a landlocked country with limited industrial and agricultural capacity, it relies heavily on external markets to meet basic consumption needs. According to data from the Afghanistan National Statistics and Information Authority (NSIA), imports account for approximately 66% of GDP, reflecting deep structural reliance on cross border trade. In such an economic structure, even moderate disruptions to regional trade or increases in global prices are transmitted rapidly into domestic markets, with direct consequences for household welfare.

Recent shocks were already testing this structural dependence. The closure of border crossings with Pakistan in November 2025 triggered immediate supply constraints across Afghan markets. Pakistan has long served as one of Afghanistan’s primary trade partners and corridors—accounting for roughly 13% of total imports and approximately 27% of food and agricultural imports. The disruption exacerbated price pressures at a time when household purchasing power was already constrained.

Under ordinary circumstances, Iran would partially offset these disruptions by expanding exports to Afghanistan and facilitating access to alternative trade routes. Iran is Afghanistan’s largest trading partner, with bilateral trade exceeding $3.2 billion annually, accounting for approximately 30% of total imports and around 15% of food imports.

But the late February outbreak of war led Iran to impose broad restrictions on food exports to maintain domestic supplies. Thus, Afghanistan now faces simultaneous constraints on supply from its two most important sources, together accounting for more than 42% of its food imports (Figure 1).

Figure 1

Complicating the picture, these disruptions extend beyond direct bilateral trade. Iran and Pakistan also function as critical transit corridors for imports originating in third countries, including the United Arab Emirates and India. Thus, the constraints along these routes have also affected Afghanistan’s access to a wider range of global suppliers, intensifying pressures on domestic food markets.

Inflationary pressures

These pressures have triggered food price inflation. The Pakistan restrictions were already driving up prices for key commodities before the start of the Iran conflict. World Food Programme (WFP) weekly market price data (Figure 2) indicate that the price of rice, the second main staple in Afghanistan and primarily sourced from Pakistan, increased by 33% in the first week of January 2026 compared to October 2025, pre-border closure. Even imported commodities such as wheat and cooking oil, not sourced from Pakistan, recorded price increases of approximately 17% and 19%, respectively, reflecting substitution effects and higher transportation costs associated with longer and more expensive alternative trade routes. Imports through Iranian corridors have reportedly continued but at reduced volumes through the end of March, meaning that market prices have not yet fully reflected the impact of Iran’s export restrictions. In this context, any additional trade disruption or any increase in fuel prices further amplifies cost pressures, reinforcing an already upward trajectory in food prices. Notably, Iran is a major source of fuel for Afghanistan. While Iranian oil exports have not been formally restricted, domestic fuel prices in Afghanistan increased by approximately 9% in the first week of April compared to pre-conflict levels, reflecting broader global energy price increases.

Figure 2

Inflationary pressures extend beyond food markets. Afghanistan depends on imports from Iran for a wide range of intermediate inputs, including fuel derivatives, plastics, packaging materials, and construction inputs such as steel  as well as agricultural inputs such as fertilizer. Disruptions to Iran’s industrial production, particularly in petroleum refining, petrochemicals, and metals, thus have spillover effects on nonfood prices in Afghanistan. Reduced availability and higher costs of these inputs raise production costs for domestic firms, contributing to broader and more persistent inflationary pressures across the economy.

Climate stress and domestic production constraints

Afghanistan’s profound domestic structural constraints further compound these external shocks. The country is currently experiencing its sixth consecutive year of drought, marked by prolonged water scarcity, recurrent drought and flooding events, reduced agricultural output, weakened livestock systems, and declining rural incomes. These climate related pressures have progressively eroded the productive capacity of the agricultural sector, leaving domestic food supplies increasingly fragile.

As a result, the country’s ability to boost domestic production to substitute for reduced imports is severely limited. Input markets present an additional and binding constraint, particularly limited fertilizer availability. Global fertilizer markets have tightened following the escalation of conflict, leading to sharp price increases, with fertilizer prices rising by approximately 27% since the beginning of the conflict. In Afghanistan’s subsistence agricultural system where fertilizer use is 6.6 kg per hectare of arable land, far below the the average of 96.4 kg per hectare for the region,such increases further depress output, reinforcing dependence on food imports at a time when external supplies are already shrinking.

Rising demand and demographic pressure

These supply-side constraints would be challenging under stable demand conditions, but they are unfolding alongside rapidly increasing consumption needs due largely to the return of so many Afghans. In 2025 alone, an estimated 2.9 million people returned, primarily from Iran and Pakistan, significantly increasing consumption needs across both urban and rural areas. In addition to forced deportation, these demographic pressures stem from deteriorating economic conditions in host countries, particularly Iran.

Iran’s economy has long struggled with high inflation, a weakening currency, and declining real incomes, trends that have severely affected Afghan migrant households. The outbreak of conflict, heightened security risks, and resulting sharp economic contraction—with GDP projected to decline by 6.1%—have further reduced livelihood opportunities for Afghan migrants. As a result, returning to Afghanistan is the only option for many Afghan migrants, suggesting the likelihood of an additional wave of returnees in 2026.

Amid weakening domestic production and increasingly unreliable import channels, growing demand places additional pressure on Afghanistan’s already strained markets, setting the stage for further price increases and worsening food insecurity risks.

A worsening food security outlook

Afghanistan is already facing a severe food security crisis. According to the latest IPC analysis, approximately 28% of the population is classified in IPC Phase 3 or higher, indicating acute food insecurity. In such a context, even relatively small disruptions to supply chains or modest increases in food prices can generate disproportionately large welfare losses, particularly among poor households with limited coping capacity. Households in Afghanistan spend an exceptionally large share of their income on food, leaving little ability to absorb additional price or income shocks without compromising consumption quantity or quality.

In the absence of a functional national social protection system, households rely primarily on humanitarian assistance to meet basic food needs. However, a 47% funding shortfall in 2025 has significantly reduced the scale and predictability of aid operations. Yet, WFP assisted 12.4 million people out of the 17.4 million facing crisis or emergency levels of food insecurity, highlighting both the scale of humanitarian needs and the narrowing margin for response.

However, the Iran war has introduced additional logistical challenges, with the disruption of key humanitarian supply routes from strategic hubs such as Dubai, Doha, and Abu Dhabi following the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The WFP reports the war has resulted in a large disruption of their supply chain affecting 70,000 metric tons of food. Rising transportation costs driven by higher fuel prices and insurance premiums are increasing delivery costs, raising the risk that humanitarian supplies may be delayed, scaled back, or fail to reach populations in need, further exacerbating acute food insecurity.

These mutually reinforcing pressures—trade disruptions, rising global energy prices, climate stress, constrained domestic production, and increasing demand—disproportionately affect vulnerable households that are already operating close to subsistence thresholds, leaving little room to absorb additional shocks without sharp deteriorations in food consumption and welfare. If the war drags on, these pressures will only intensify, raising the risks of more widespread food insecurity and humanitarian crisis.

Sediqa Zaki is a Research Analyst with IFPRI’s Markets, Trade, and Institutions Unit. Opinions are the author’s.