Climate Change Aggravates Food Shortage Across the Globe, Affects Chocolate, Coffee, Chili

The impacts of climate change on food production are becoming more obvious as the southern California company Huy Fong Foods, which annually produces 20 million bottles of sriracha, has been experiencing a shortage of red jalapeno chili peppers. This shortage was made worse by the failure in the spring crop season brought on by adverse weather and drought conditions in Mexico.

Extreme weather last year, according to mustard producers in Canada and France, resulted in a 50% decrease in seed production, which resulted in a shortage of condiments on grocery store shelves. Staples such as coffee, wheat, corn, apples, chocolate, and wine are affected by increased storm intensity, sweltering heat, floods, droughts, fires, and changes in rainfall patterns. The climate crisis is endangering food production by intensifying and frequenting extreme weather events.

Grains, Wheat, Maize

Carolyn Dimitri, a nutrition and food studies professor from New York University, pointed out that climate change is having an impact on almost everything grown and raised in the US. Grain crops, including wheat, are said to be particularly vulnerable by experts. Drought impacted the winter crop in the Great Plains, where the majority of the wheat for the US is harvested. Winter wheat abandonment rates in the US, particularly in Texas and Oklahoma, are at their highest levels since 2002. In the meantime, flooding in Montana is endangering grain harvests.

According to Dimitri, this is significant because the US doesn't have a sizable surplus and is currently unable to help close the global wheat supply gap brought on by the Ukraine crisis.

Grain crops are being impacted by the climate crisis in countries other than the US. Due to extreme heat throughout the spring and summer in India, the wheat crop was severely harmed. The government imposed a ban on wheat exports as Delhi reached 120 degrees Fahrenheit in May, which caused prices to rise even higher than they had before Russia invaded Ukraine.

According to a 2021 Nasa study, climate change could have a significant impact on the world's production of maize and wheat as early as 2030, with maize crop yields predicted to fall by 24 percent.

Apples, Coffee, Chocolate, Wine

Another food that is already in danger is apples. Heavy spring frost hampered Michigan and Wisconsin's apple harvest from the previous year. According to the USDA, climatic changes like warming can result in slower growth, smaller yields, and altered fruit quality.

According to Ricky Robertson, a senior researcher at the International Food Policy Research Institute, even though people can still grow food, it gets harder as the temperature rises.

Experts point out that even the price of coffee is being impacted by extreme weather. Coffee prices rose by 70% between April 2020 and December 2021 as a result of crop destruction caused by drought and frost in Brazil, the world's largest producer of beverages. Since up to 120 million of the world's poorest people depend on coffee production for their survival, the economic repercussions could be significant.

John Furlow, the director of the Columbia Climate School's International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), said that in response to rising temperatures, coffee farmers in places like Costa Rica and Jamaica cannot simply relocate to higher altitudes.

Due to drier conditions in west Africa, the climate crisis will also affect where farmers can grow cacao, and a shortage of chocolate goods is anticipated in the following years.

The wine industry in France experienced its smallest harvest since 1957 last year, with an estimated $2 billion in lost sales. Due to higher temperatures and abundant rain in 2021, a Champagne vineyard that typically produces 40,000-50,000 bottles annually failed to produce anything.

According to one study, wine-growing regions could shrink by up to 56% if temperatures increase by 2°C. If the world warmed by four degrees, 85 percent of those regions might lose their ability to make good wines.

Linda Johnson-Bell, the founder of the Wine and Climate Change Institute, says that the current situation may force growers to increase irrigation, and move completely to stop production. However, as irrigation levels rise, this adaptation strategy will no longer be effective.

According to Johnson-Bell, the world's wine map will change as a result of climate change's unpredictable weather patterns, with some wine-producing regions disappearing and others emerging.

2020's record-breaking wildfires in California had a negative impact on the harvest, and the state's wine grape crop was in grave danger due to the poor air quality. Some vineyards in Napa Valley won't make it because winemakers are being forced to take drastic measures, like spraying sunscreen on grapes and irrigating with treated wastewater from sinks and toilets, Newsbreak reports.

To adjust to warmer temperatures and extreme weather, growers must move their production, as in the game of musical chairs, according to Robertson, who compares agriculture's climate-related challenges.

Both a cause and a victim of the climate crisis is food production. Increasing crop diversity, providing climate predictions to farmers worldwide, enhancing conservation initiatives, and providing growers with insurance that pays out when an indicator like rainfall or wind speed rises above or falls below a predetermined threshold are just a few of the many steps that will be needed to transform the food system.