The rolling crises of the past few years rendered visible so many vital commodities that plenty of us never gave much thought — nickel, silicon chips, lumber. The latest entrant into this camp: Fertilizer.

Why it matters: Skyrocketing fertilizer costs — like those made from nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (NPK) — are driving up food prices and, worse, threatening food security around the globe.

State of play: Prices for NPK were up 125% in January from a year before, and rose another 17% from the beginning of the year to March, according to data compiled by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

The big picture: Prices for these heavily traded raw materials were already rising in 2021, because of a myriad of factors: Hurricane Ida in the U.S., an upsurge in demand after the pandemic, supply chain issues, and rising natural gas prices that predated the war in Ukraine.

Then, two things made that worse:

Of note: Fertilizer is a heavily traded product, meaning most countries — even the ones making lots of food — import their supply.

The bottom line: In richer countries, we'll continue to see higher food prices, and in more vulnerable countries things could grow desperate.