Kathmandu, Mar 27: Rapper-turned-politician Balendra Shah ‘Balen,’ took oath as Nepal’s democratically elected prime minister on Friday, around six months after the K P Sharma Oli-led government was ousted in a Gen-Z protest that shook the nation.

The 35-year-old Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) leader was sworn in at a ceremony at the President’s Office in Sheetal Niwas at the auspicious time of 12.34 pm.

Balen, also an engineer, is the youngest person to be democratically elected to the office in the Himalayan nation, and also the first person from the Madhes region to hold the top executive post.

He was appointed as the 47th prime minister by President Ram Chandra Paudel in accordance with Article 76 (1) of the constitution earlier in the day.

He is the first democratically elected prime minister to be sworn in since the coalition government led by former prime minister Oli was ousted in September last year, after the youth-led Gen Z protest against corruption, nepotism, and a social media ban escalated into violence.

A unique blend of Hindu and Buddhist religious traditions featured in Balen’s swearing-in ceremony.

It comprised elaborate religious rituals, including Shankhanad (conch blowing) by seven brahmins, recitation of Vedic hymns or Swasti Bachan by 108 Hindu Batuks or young brahmins and Mangal Bachan or recitation of Buddhist scripture by 107 Lamas.

Balen is likely to form a small cabinet with the number of ministers ranging between 15 and 18, sources have said.

In the March 5 general elections, the former Kathmandu mayor defeated four-time prime minister Sharma Oli in the Jhapa-5 constituency, a long-standing stronghold of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist), by a huge margin.

The RSP won a landslide victory in the March 5 poll, securing a massive 182 seats out of the total 275 seats in the House of Representatives (HoR), making it eligible to form a majority government.

Of the 275 members of the HoR, 165 are elected through direct voting and 110 through proportionate voting.

Balen and the RSP tsunami almost wiped out the traditional parties with the Nepali Congress winning only 38 seats, followed by the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist-Leninist (CPN-UML) with 25, and the Nepali Communist Party getting only 17 seats.

Former chief justice Sushila Karki took charge as the interim prime minister on the recommendation of the Gen Z group after Oli’s ouster.

On Friday, the newly elected HoR members, including Balen, took the oath of office at the federal parliament building, beginning the process of government formation three weeks after the voting concluded.

Hanoi, Mar 27: Farmers around the world are feeling the squeeze of the Iran war. Gas prices have shot up and fertiliser supplies are waning due to Tehran’s near shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for US and Israeli bombing.

The fertiliser shortage is putting the livelihood of farmers in developing countries — already troubled by rising temperatures and erratic weather systems — further at risk, and could lead to people everywhere paying more for food.

The poorest farmers in the Northern Hemisphere rely on fertiliser imports from the Gulf, and the shortage comes just as planting season begins, said Carl Skau, deputy executive director of the World Food Programme.

“In the worst case, this means lower yields and crop failures next season. In the best case, higher input costs will be included in food prices next year.”

The war halts supplies of key nutrients

Iran is seriously limiting shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow passage that usually handles about a fifth of the world’s oil shipments and nearly a third of global fertiliser trade.

Nitrogen and phosphate — two major fertiliser nutrients — are under immediate threat from the blockade.

Supplies of nitrogen including urea, the most widely traded fertiliser that helps plants grow and boosts yields, are the hardest hit because of shipping delays and the soaring price of liquefied natural gas — an essential ingredient.

The conflict has restricted about 30 per cent of global urea trade, said Chris Lawson of CRU Group, a London-based commodities consultancy.

Some countries are already facing critical shortages, according to Raj Patel, a food systems economist at the University of Texas. For example, Ethiopia gets over 90 per cent of its nitrogen fertiliser from the Gulf through Djibouti, a supply route that was strained even before the war began in February.

“The planting season is now,” Patel said. “The fertiliser isn’t there.”

Phosphate supplies, which support root development, are also under pressure. Saudi Arabia produces about a fifth of the world’s phosphate fertiliser, and the region exports more than 40 per cent of the world’s sulfur, a key ingredient and byproduct of oil and gas refining, Lawson said.

Even after the war ends, producers in the Gulf would need clear security guarantees before resuming shipments through the strait, and insurance costs would almost certainly rise, said Owen Gooch, an analyst with London-based Argus Consulting Services.

“The food system is fragile, and it depends on stable fertiliser supply chains to ensure farmers can produce the food the world relies on,” said Hanna Opsahl-Ben Ammar of Yara International, one of the world’s largest fertiliser companies.

Shortages hit at a critical time

Fertilisers are generally applied just before or at planting, so crops miss key early growth stages and yields can fall when deliveries are delayed, even if supplies improve later.

The impact is already being felt in the United States and Europe, where the main planting season is underway, and it is expected to hit the first planting season in much of Asia in the coming months.

“Our crops out in the field need nitrogen now — the sooner the better — so they can get off to a good start, helping them establish themselves and build up reserves for the harvest later this summer,” said Dirk Peters, an agricultural engineer who runs a farm outside Berlin.

Fertiliser prices are below the peaks seen after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but grain prices were higher then, helping farmers absorb the costs, said Joseph Glauber of the International Food Policy Research Institute.

Grain prices are lower now meaning margins are tighter and farmers may have to switch to less fertiliser-intensive crops — such as soybeans in the US — or apply less fertiliser, reducing yields. Lower yields can lead to higher consumer prices.

Other nations likely won’t make up the shortfall. China, the world’s largest producer of nitrogen and phosphate fertilisers, is prioritising domestic supply, and urea shipments probably won’t resume until May, Lawson said. Plants in Russia, another major producer, are already running near full capacity, he said.

Developing nations are vulnerable

The disruptions are already being felt across Africa, where many farmers rely on fertiliser imported from the Middle East and Russia.

Early heavy rains in East Africa have left farmers with about a week of dry weather to prepare fields and apply fertilizer, said Stephen Muchiri, a Kenya maize farmer and CEO of the Eastern African Farmers Federation, which represents 25 million smallholders.

Fertiliser shortages and price hikes hit farmers hard, forcing them to use less and leading to reduced yields. Even short delays can reduce maize yields by about 4 per cent in a season, Patel said, citing research from Zambia.

Governments can intervene by applying subsidies, promoting domestic production and controlling exports.