🚜 A fertiliser shortage is impacting Gippsland

Plus: European summer holidays in doubt.

Author

Jacob Wallace
March 13, 2026

⏱️ This Friday edition of our newsletter is a six-minute read.

👋 Hello Gippslanders, it’s Jacob here.

It’s been another busy week at the Monitor.

🎤 Yesterday, I spoke to two Gippsland farmers and a professor of agriculture about how the conflict in the Middle East is restricting the import of the nitrogen fertiliser urea into Australia.

Nearly two thirds of Australia’s urea is imported from the Persian Gulf, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

🥛 Neerim South dairy farmer David Johnson told me he will delay his usual bulk order for winter fertiliser this year and instead wait a month or two to see “how things settle down”.

❝

It's generally our cheapest source of growing extra feed. Urea is probably half our fertiliser usage; [the price increase is] going to hurt the most.

Neerim South dairy farmer, David Johnson.

👀 Looking ahead. In this week’s newsletter we’re talking about:

  • 📽️ The inaugural Gippsland International Film Festival;

  • 🏛️ Darren Chester being elected the Nationals deputy leader;

  • 🐮 Whether cows should eat more seaweed, and;

  • ✈️ What to do if you were planning to head to Europe in the Northern summer.

🎊 WHAT’S ON THIS WEEK 🎟️

🧺 FARMERS MARKETS 🥧

🚀 Alright, let’s jump into the Monitor’s latest yarns!

🔍 HEARD THIS WEEK👂

🗳️ Darren Chester elected Nationals deputy leader

Queensland senator Matt Canavan has been elected as the new leader of the National Party, with Gippsland MP Darren Chester chosen as his deputy.

Former Nationals leader David Littleproud resigned from the position on Tuesday, telling reporters “I'm buggered, I've had enough”.

Chester replaces Kevin Hogan as deputy leader.

After years of waiting for a film festival to start up in Gippsland, Alana Auden and Edward Yates finally decided that if they wanted to see international short films then they would have to do it themselves.

How did the festival come to be?

Yates, who hails from Gippsland, met Auden while studying film in Melbourne. After starting a family together they decided to move back to Gippsland six years ago.

“From that time onwards we were hoping someone else might set up a film festival that we could attend. We were keen to connect with others in the area and see local films,” Yates said.

Auden said: “Then we realised we're going to have to do it ourselves.”

How does a short film festival work?

The couple sought submissions from filmmakers around the world and received 50 applications, including from Italy, Spain, Germany, Singapore and the US.

  • “I was very pleasantly surprised with the submissions we have got. They're beautiful pieces that are really well made,” Yates said.

After the films were submitted a select panel of six Gippslanders, including Auden and Yates, chose 30 to show at the festival.

  • The films run between one and 20 minutes, and have been grouped together into sessions to complement each other.

The Persian Gulf is about 12,000km from David Johnson’s dairy farm in Neerim South, but that hasn’t stopped him and other Gippsland farmers from feeling the financial impacts of the Middle East war.

What happened: Since Israel and the US launched attacks against Iran, the war has spread to other parts of the Middle East, causing chaos in international shipping.

Twenty percent of the world’s oil - and many other products, including the nitrogen fertiliser urea - have to pass from the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz into the Arabian Sea before being shipped east into Asia and to other destinations.

Iran has blocked the Strait of Hormuz, threatening to attack cargo ships that attempt to run the gauntlet. 

Nearly two thirds (64 percent) of Australia’s urea is imported from the Persian Gulf, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. 

The blockage has caused the international price of urea to surge by about 25 percent compared to a month ago.

In Australia, the price spike appears to be higher. According to Western Victoria dairy farmer, Mark Billing, the price has risen from $800 to $1,250 a tonne.

  • What is urea? The fertiliser boosts grass growth during colder months.

Johnson told the Monitor he will delay his usual bulk order for urea this year and instead wait a month or two to see “how things settle down”.

“It's generally our cheapest source of growing extra feed,” he said. “Urea is probably half our fertiliser usage; [the price increase is] going to hurt the most.”

LOOKING NATIONALLY 👀

This week my colleague Archie Milligan from the National Account took a look at how the conflict in the Middle East is impacting travel plans for thousands of Australians.

Take a look at the video Archie made below.

🎥 Watch: Should cows eat more seaweed? 🍙 

I made a video about a story I wrote last week on how dairy farmers are able to reduce methane emissions from cows by adding seaweed to their food. This additive is helping farmers and companies reach their emissions reduction targets.

Take a look at the video below.

Thanks for catching up with us at the Monitor. I hope you enjoyed this Friday issue and I’d love to hear from you - if you have a local scoop, feel free to email us at [email protected].

Cheers,
Jacob & the Gippsland Monitor team

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