Spiking fuel and fertilizer costs linked to the Middle East war are causing major struggles for smallholder farmers across Southeast Asia. Many are unsure whether to plant their crops due to the high costs of diesel and nutrients.

Harvest-ready rice fields are lying idle and farmers are deciding whether to skip planting for the coming season, as spiking fuel and fertiliser costs from the war in the Middle East hit one of the world’s biggest rice-growing regions. Across Southeast Asia, tens of millions of smallholders are struggling to find affordable crop nutrients as well as the diesel needed to run tractors, irrigation pumps and rice planters. In Thailand, some farmers are leaving the crop in the ground as it is too...