more importantly the question is that … is the dead sea is the ONLY place in the world that they can get these poisonous salts used in the manufacturing of herbicides etc ???
Chemical Engineer here and I have designed some fertilizer plants and worked in others and analyzed the economics for sometime now. I will leave my opinions on the use of fertilizer in farming and concentrate on the OP’s question.
So - Predominantly, Oil is not directly used in the manufacture of ammonia (ammonia is in turn converted to Urea or Urea Ammonia Nitrate (UAN) ).. Natural gas is used predominantly in the US (China uses coal to make Ammonia, some countries have used hydroelectric plants to make fertilizers, few plants use Petcoke residue from refineries, etc. etc.). Historically Urea (or Ammonia) prices tracked gas prices (which also tracked oil prices) but this has changed in the last few years and here is why:
When Oil prices go up, farmers plant a lot of corn to make higher profits on the biofuels (ethanol) derived from the corn. So the demand for urea (fertilizers in general) go up and so do the prices.
So in summary - Higher Oil prices means higher profits for farmers selling ethanol (biofuel) to the gasoline consumers and they want to produce more ethanol. So in turn they need more fertilizer and drive up the fertilizer prices 
The OP never specified if he’s talking about chemical fertilizer or natural cow-shit fertilizer. Even plain old fashioned cow manure involves burning oil or coal or something. The don’t just shovel up cow shit from fields into bags and sell it. It has to be processed and sanitized and sterilized. To do all this, they cook it.
It still smells like cow manure though.
in regards to whoever was fear-mongering about the lack of genetic diversity/prevalence of hybrid crops : would you rather ~3 billion people starve to death now or there be a small risk that the a proportion of those crops die, causing much, much fewer deaths?
I know this is a zombie thread, but I just had to refute this false claim that gets pushed around by non-meatarians:
So a decrease* in meat consumption is the cause of the obesity epidemic?
*In caloric terms, since eating leaner meat can reduce caloric intake even if you eat more, as people are doing; same for dairy (whole milk has nearly 2x the calories of skim, for just 3.25% fat).
Also, one way to solve the fertilizer problem is to completely revamp the sanitation system, so human waste is returned to the fields, since that is how plants are naturally fertilized. And ban the use of corn, or any food crop, to make ethanol (a very bad way to get “renewable” - ha! - energy, also see the table here), which is doubtlessly a major contributor to higher food prices (nearly half the crop currently goes towards ethanol - meaning that we could almost double food production from corn, or use the space to grow other crops). Or put a tax on unhealthy foods (the stuff with refined grains, fat, and sugar; see above) and use that to subsidize healthy foods (including, for example, making fatty meat more expensive but lean meat cheaper, and all processed meats much more expensive, which would greatly reduce heart disease).
I have no idea where you get this. In Isreal they get potash from the Dead Sea. Salts that contain potassium. It is not rare or found only there. A quick google search shows that the worlds number 1 producer of potash is Canada. Isreal is 6th, Jordan is 7th and the US is 8th. Iraq is no where to be found.
Hell even the oil thing is bogus. The US certainly didn’t get any oil. There is currently an Iraqi oil boom but their biggest customer is China by far.
thankyou Loach,
for answering , but i was only talking about pesticides/herbicides etc , not fertilizers ,
ill start a new thread …
cheers