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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/28/climate-crisis-food-shortages
Huy Fong Foods, the southern California company that produces 20m bottles of sriracha annually, has experienced a low inventory of red jalapeño chilli peppers in recent years made worse by spring’s crop failure. The cause? Severe weather and drought conditions in Mexico.
It’s not just chilli peppers. Mustard producers in France and Canada said extreme weather caused a 50% reduction in seed production last year, leading to a shortage of the condiment on grocery store shelves. Blistering heat, stronger storms, droughts, floods, fires and changes in rainfall patterns are also affecting the cost and availability of staples, including wheat, corn, coffee, apples, chocolate and wine.
The climate crisis is increasing the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events – and it’s putting food production at risk. “Almost everything we grow and raise in the US is facing some climatic stress,” said Carolyn Dimitri, nutrition and food studies professor at NYU.
Wheat and other grain crops are particularly vulnerable. In the Great Plains, where most of the US’s wheat is harvested, drought depressed the winter crop. Abandonment levels for winter wheat in the US – primarily in Texas and Oklahoma – are the highest since 2002. Meanwhile in Montana, flooding is threatening grain crops.
The impact of the climate crisis on grain crops extends beyond the US. In India, a fierce heatwave damaged the wheat crop due to record-setting temperatures throughout the spring and summer. As Delhi hit 120F in May, the government placed a ban on wheat exports, driving up prices even further than the rise following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Food production is a driver of the climate crisis and a victim of it. Transforming the food system will require a slew of actions, including increasing crop diversity, delivering climate predictions to farmers around the world, expanding conservation programs and offering growers insurance that pays out when an index such as rain or wind speed falls above or below a set threshold.
The Biden administration is supporting research into “climate-smart” agriculture, an approach to managing cropland, forest, fisheries and livestock that attempts to address the intersecting challenges of the climate crisis and food security.
In May, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, said that climate-related disasters and extreme weather were a driver of global hunger and that 1.7 billion people have been affected by the climate crisis over the last decade.
Experts say unless action is taken, we can expect to see increased food prices, decreased availability and conflict over water, which will primarily affect poorer countries and low-income Americans, straining everything from school lunches to food aid programs.
