A former World Bank chief has warned against China hoarding food and fertiliser at a time when global supply chains have been severely disrupted by the US-Israeli war on Iran . “They have the biggest world stockpile of food stuffs and of fertiliser,” David Malpass, president of the World Bank from 2019 to 2023, told the BBC, referring to China. The Asian manufacturing giant is one of the world’s largest fertiliser ‌exporters, shipping $13bn worth of it last year. Just weeks after the US -Israeli strikes on Iran and Lebanon forced Tehran to close the Strait of Hormuz, one of the planet’s most critical maritime trade routes, Beijing restricted fertiliser exports to protect its domestic market, putting additional ​strain on global markets already grappling with shortages. The closure of the strait, which carried a fifth of the world’s oil and gas supplies as well as a large volume of fertiliser before the war, has caused commodity prices to skyrocket.…