(Soon: add in the effects of tariffs, nothing to do with climate change).
"U.S. imports of Brazilian beef have plummeted 80% in just three months, as President Donald Trump’s tariff crackdown begins to bite. Shipments tumbled from 47,800 tons in April — when a 10% tariff took effect — to just 9,700 tons so far in July. The looming 50% surcharge, scheduled for Aug. 1, is already reshaping trade flows and forcing exporters to reroute containers to beat the deadline."
We can eat differently, and better:
"This is a story of exploration, adaptation and improved health, not one of abstinence.
By transforming how we grow food and what we eat – rather than letting climate change dictate the pace of change – we have so much to gain. If you are a proponent for less but better meat, for increased crop diversity or organic food, then the answer is more plants in our diets."
"Climate change is contributing to a global shortage of the world’s most consumed fruit.
Bananas are the fourth most important food crop globally, with more than 400 million people relying on the fruit for 15% to 27% of their daily calories, and they’re not the only crop at risk.
Climate models show that mitigation efforts are the best ways we can reduce climate impacts on our food supply."
https://time.com/7310462/banana-supply-climate-change/
#ClimateInflation
"The struggles [of farmers in the south of Europe] mean the price of wine, olives, citrus fruits and vegetables are expected to continue to rise, as droughts, flash floods and high temperatures affect traditional crops in the Mediterranean.
However, the more the climate crisis progresses the harder it becomes to adapt and the more costly it becomes."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/25/we-cannot-do-it-the-way-our-fathers-did-farmers-across-europe-struggle-to-adapt-to-the-climate-crisis
#ClimateInflation
"For every degree of warming, the study estimates year-to-year variability in crop yields will increase by 7% for corn (maize), 19% for soybeans and 10% for sorghum.
They identified “increased covariance of temperature and water stresses as a substantial and previously unquantified driver of future increases in yield variance.”"
https://cosmosmagazine.com/earth/climate/crop-failures-climate-change/
"These mounting [climate] risks are leading farmers to bet on regenerative agriculture. Together with climate advocates and scientists, they increasingly see these practices as key to withstanding changing climatic conditions — and to helping farmers stay in business. And Europe is showing how it can be done, they say."
#ClimateInflation
Tariff inflation
Deportations inflation
"Grocery prices last month rose at their fastest pace in three years, stoked by Trump’s tariffs, a crackdown on immigration, and extreme weather hurting food production. Prices jumped 0.6% in August from the month prior, according to the latest reading from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and they are up 2.7% from a year ago."
https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/20/business/grocery-store-prices-kroger-coupons
"Mr Rinaudo's work as an agronomist — a soil and plant scientist — in the West African nation during the 1980s resulted in the development of farmer-managed natural regeneration (FMNR), a technique that resulted in trees springing up from lifeless soil.
His work has given the tool of knowledge to others around him, while feeding millions of people in the process."
""Nobody has tried this before, but with climate change, we have crops that, 10 years ago, we wouldn't have thought would be viable. In 10 years time, rice could be a completely perfect crop for us," Nadine says.
This is the very edge of where rice can grow at the moment.
It will still be some time before we can test taste a UK rice crop - but it's a very real possibility that in the next decade, UK-grown rice could be coming to our dinner plates."
"Beyond potatoes, Maine's other top crops are suffering. Blueberry growers are warning of reduced harvests this year, and Canada's industry — which supplies much of the U.S. — could see losses of up to one-third. Meanwhile, vegetable gardeners across the region are reporting wilting plants and dry soil.
For consumers, this means higher prices at the grocery store. "
https://www.thecooldown.com/sustainable-food/maine-drought-potato-farmers-climate-change-2/
"Serbia has suffered from extreme drought in addition to frost in 2025, compounding the detrimental effects on crops.
The lack of rain has devastated corn crops, and the frost destroyed much of the fruit and vegetable yield, leading to extremely high grocery prices."
https://www.thecooldown.com/sustainable-food/serbia-drought-agriculture-farming/
"One year’s worth of bread has been lost in the UK since 2020 due to extreme weather destroying harvests, a report has found.
Droughts and floods, which have been exacerbated by climate breakdown, have created a deficit in wheat production of over 7m tonnes. Experts at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) calculated this is enough wheat to bake more than 4bn loaves of bread – a year’s supply."
Climate Change Linked To 40% Of UK Food Price Hikes
Staples like butter, beef, milk, coffee and chocolate account for nearly 40% of all food price inflation, despite comprising only 11% of an average shopping basket, according to the study.
This trend challenges arguments that minimum-wage hikes or other domestic factors are the main cause of inflation.
Climate impacts added an estimated £360 (€414) to the average UK household food bill in 2022-23."
https://www.esmmagazine.com/supply-chain/climate-change-linked-to-40-of-uk-food-price-hikes-study-finds-298316
#ClimateInflation
"This week, prices spiked again in the futures market as stocks of Brazilian beans in the US dwindled to their lowest level since 2020 and Donald Trump threatened tariffs on Colombia, another big exporter.
But the president's trade war obscures another major factor driving up coffee prices: climate change."
FAO report:
"Disasters – from droughts and floods to pests and marine heatwaves – have inflicted an estimated $3.26 trillion in agricultural losses worldwide over the past 33 years – an average of $99 billion annually, roughly 4 percent of global agricultural GDP.
These losses translate to a daily per capita reduction of 320 kilocalories – 13–16 percent of average energy needs."
Africa has lost $ 611 billion from 1991 - 2023 to "natural" disasters and climate change.
With great impact on the continent's food security.
h/t @Snoro
#ClimateInflation in the price of food in North America:
"Projected warming by 2035 would drive food inflation up by 1.4 to 1.8 percentage-points per-year on average across North America (for low-end (SSP1-2.6) and high-end (SSP5-8.5) warming scenarios, respectively). By 2060, warming-driven food inflation across North America would reach 1.9 to 3.9 percentage-points per-year, respectively."
https://www.climatecentral.org/climate-matters/climate-change-and-food-prices
" When enough early adopters begin experimenting with regenerative techniques, others can take notice. Perceptions shift. A new normal becomes possible.
Yet these pro-change norms are rarely included in global models. This limits our ability to understand where transformation might take off, or how policy and community support could accelerate it. "
https://earth4all.life/views/why-regenerative-farming-needs-social-change/
"As carbon dioxide increases, so does carbon uptake, and more carbon means more carbohydrates, like sugars and starch. However, critical nutrients such as iron, zinc, and protein all decreased. Our food might have more carbs but fewer essential nutrients."
https://theconversation.com/climate-change-is-affecting-your-food-and-not-in-your-favour-270323
“Climate change and weather extremes will drive down global caloric yields by about 24% under high future emissions.
“This would result in higher food prices, which in rich countries would feel like inflation. In poor countries, this would exacerbate food security problems and could negatively affect political stability.”
For food security, one must look beyond the staples, and consider regional variability.
"Overall, India is producing record levels of paddy and wheat, but marginal production of other crops affects nutrient intake.
Agricultural districts most vulnerable to climate change are often in arid or semi-arid regions, coastal zones and rainfed areas. Protecting these from crop losses would not only secure food supply and livelihoods but also ensure better health."
CO2 "plant food"? -- Not so fast.
"The results, she said, were a shock: although crop yields increase, they become less nutrient-dense. While zinc levels in particular drop, lead levels increase."
“We aren’t seeing a simple dilution effect but rather a complete shift in the composition of our foods … This also raises the question of whether we should adjust our diets in some way, or how we grow or produce our food.”
‘Borrowed time’: crop pests and food losses supercharged by climate crisis
"Researchers said the world was lucky to have so far avoided a major shock and was living on borrowed time, with action needed to diversify crops and boost natural predators of pests.
The key global crops, wheat, rice and maize, are expected to see the losses to pests increase by about 46%, 19% and 31% respectively when global heating reaches 2C, the scientists said."
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/dec/20/crop-pests-food-losses-climate-crisis
"Unless urgent action is taken, the number of Somalis in need of humanitarian aid could reach 7.1 million by April this year.
This because the situation is expected to worsen during the peak of the dry season, from mid-December to March. Drought conditions worsened this year after failed rains in Somali regions, with some areas along rivers reporting a reduction in river flow, which has further impacted crop production reliant on rainfall and river water."
https://www.dawan.africa/news/drought-crisis-71-million-somalis-face-dire-need-by-april-sodma-warns
"Climate change is taking a toll on Karnataka's agriculture sector, with localised floods and droughts causing significant crop losses. Over the past five years, farmers have received Rs 7,079 crore (USD 772 million) in compensation for these losses.
Agriculture Department data shows that the number of farmers availing crop insurance has doubled over this period, while compensation payouts have tripled, highlighting the increasing vulnerability of farming."
"Extreme weather in the global coffee-growing regions (“the bean belt”) is at least partly to blame for recent coffee price surges.
Coffee plants thrive under specific temperature and rainfall ranges. Suboptimal conditions can harm the quality and quantity of bean harvests.
Climate change is bringing more excessive heat to major coffee-growing regions, according to a new analysis using Climate Central’s Climate Shift Index."
https://www.climatecentral.org/climate-matters/more-coffee-harming-heat-due-to-carbon-pollution-2026
"The model found that, if the world continues to emit a high level of greenhouse gas emissions, over 1.1 billion people globally, including more than 600 million children, will have been exposed to at least one severe food crisis by 2100.
[In] Africa with more than 170 million people [are] predicted to be exposed to food crises - the worst of which would be starvation - in 2099 alone – a number equivalent to the current combined population of Italy, France, and Spain."
Pakistan: Harvest of pulses significantly decreased due to low returns, export restrictions -- and climate change
https://mastodon.social/@Snoro/116116699598224092
#ClimateInflation
Food insecurity
"One shock could spark social unrest and even food riots in the UK, according to dozens of the country’s top food experts, because chronic issues have left the food system a “tinderbox”.
The group first identified a series of issues that are making access to food vulnerable in the UK, including the climate crisis, low incomes, poor farming policy and fragile just-in-time supply chains. These have left the UK dangerously exposed, the researchers said."
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2026/feb/23/uk-food-security-cyber-attack-riots-tinderbox-analysis
Persistent rains devastate crops in Spain, Portugal, France, and Morocco.
This will have implications for food supply in the UK and in northern Europe.
https://www.ft.com/content/8504b1a8-dcf6-43b7-8816-fdaac8b30f12
"India recorded about 118 days per year (between 2021 and 2025) above 30 degrees celsius, the temperature threshold beyond which the heat harms the coffee plants. Roughly 30 of those days were driven by climate change, the analysis shows."
"Livestock farmers and other stakeholders have called on the federal government to urgently address the growing impact of climate change on Nigeria’s livestock sector, warning that extreme weather conditions, drought and rising feed costs are worsening productivity and threatening national meat supply."
"Flooding is the most frequent, most lethal, and most economically destructive natural hazard in Nigeria, its frequency and severity are increasing measurably under anthropogenic climate change.
The stakes of inadequate flood management are extraordinary: floods destroy livelihoods, contaminate water supplies, trigger disease outbreaks, devastate agricultural output that accounts for over 31% of GDP, and deepen the poverty of communities already living on the margins."
https://www.environewsnigeria.com/extreme-flooding-and-intensifying-rainfall-variability-in-nigeria/
Synopsis Climate change and natural climate variability are the major causes of weather extremes such as heavy rainfall. There have been reports from multiple ecological zones in Nigeria, indicating rainfall events in December 2025 through February 2026. These situations hint at an increasing crisis of rainfall variability that is imposing an increasingly severe humanitarian, economic, […]
This is not a consequence of climate change, but synthetic fertilisers are a fossil fuel product.
"Oil powers cars. Nitrogen powers crops. If the strait of Hormuz closes, the most consequential price may not be Brent crude but the cost of feeding the world.
A sustained disruption of traffic through Hormuz ... would also represent a fertiliser shock (where prices go up dramatically and supply goes down) – and, by extension, a direct risk to global food security."
"The haul of lobsters, Maine’s best known export and a key piece of the state’s identity and culture, has declined every year since 2021, and some scientists have cited as a reason warming oceans that spur migration to Canadian waters."
https://www.canoncitydailyrecord.com/2026/03/06/maine-lobster-catch/
#ClimateInflation
Far more countries face critical food insecurity if world heats up by 2C, analysis shows
"Food systems of low-income nations projected to deteriorate seven times as fast as those of wealthy ones.
“High-income countries will experience massive agricultural shocks, but they have the wealth to buy their way out of a domestic crop failure on the global market,” Bharadwaj said."
"South Punjab’s world-famous mango industry is facing a serious setback this season, as climate change has impacted the production of Summer Bahisht Chaunsa, one of the most prized mango varieties in Pakistan.
According to local growers, the first week of March brought an unexpected rise in temperature, which disrupted the natural flowering and fruit-setting process."
https://borneobulletin.com.bn/climate-change-hits-pakistans-world-famous-mango-produce/
#ClimateInflation
Rabobank report:
"The analysis says that 8% of current arabica growing areas globally are already classified as climatically unsuitable, while that figure could rise to about 20% over the next 25 years under the report’s warming scenario.
An [earlier] analysis from Climate Central found that coffee-growing regions in major producing countries have been exposed to significantly more coffee-harming heat in recent years because of climate change."
"Climate Change Is Hitting Cocoa Industry Hard
Cocoa prices have surged to record highs over the past year, driven largely by weather extremes in West Africa, where about 70% of the world’s cocoa is grown.
The issue went viral after the grandson of the inventor of the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup called Hershey out for altering the recipe after noticing differences in the taste and texture."
"The breeding response to all of this is real but, by its own researchers’ assessment, increasingly insufficient. Wheat scientists have been developing varieties with better heat tolerance, faster maturation, and improved drought resistance for decades. However, it’s still racing against a trajectory that doesn’t appear to be slowing down at the rate required to keep the gap manageable."
https://creativelearningguild.co.uk/nature/the-wheat-shortage-nobody-is-talking-about-and-how-global-warming-is-making-it-permanent/
#ClimateInflation
The Wheat Shortage Nobody Is Talking About — and How Global Warming Is Making It Permanent On a steamy April morning, stroll through a flour mill in central Punjab. The bags are still being filled, the conveyor belts are still moving, and the
"Forecasts for the strongest El Nino in a decade promise hotter, drier weather across Asia in the second half of 2026, hitting crops and food supplies while farmers grapple with fertiliser shortages and costly fuel caused by the Iran war."
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/forecast-strong-el-nino-fans-worries-about-global-crops-iran-war-bites-2026-04-24/
#ClimateInflation
"As extreme weather becomes more common, the price spikes once written off as temporary may be turning into something more lasting — a powerful new force that could further disrupt household and national budgets already beset by an affordability crisis.
Much of the effect comes from higher food prices, which the research estimated could rise by as much as 3% around the world each year, the result of hotter weather spreading across large areas and slashing harvests. "
"Temperature swings have left crops across the Plains in terrible conditions, with some farmers opting not to harvest.
This week, a crop insurance adjuster told Nielsen that, at best, his fields would yield two bushels per acre, compared with the normal upper-40s to mid-50s bushels per acre."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/may/08/wheat-farmers-face-loss-crops-heat-drought
"Asia is grappling with a new threat to inflation on top of an oil shock as a looming El Niño brings soaring temperatures and dry weather to countries from India to New Zealand, driving up food costs."
El Niño is forecast to bring drier conditions and hotter weather later this year. Food makes up about 40–50% of consumer price baskets in emerging markets in Asia, making them vulnerable to price shocks and an erosion of real incomes."
"Last year, global drought affected nearly one-third of the planet — not due to simply less rainfall, but rather to the fact that a warmer atmosphere is substantially “thirstier.”
Recent research estimates that by 2050, drought will lead to a 20% reduction in crop production across two dozen countries, leading to death toll of over 3 million — far outpacing other weather-related fatalities connected to tropical systems."
Unlike climate change–fueled hurricanes, floods, and other weather disasters that wreak fast and obvious havoc, drought sneaks into our lives more slowly — eroding the resources needed to live daily life. And with 2026 expected to be the hottest year in recorded history, thanks in part to an extraordinarily powerful El Niño, the coming months will [...]Read More... from As Global Drought Deepens — Climate Change Kills by a Thousand Cuts
"The United States experienced its worst spring drought on record last month, with more than 60% of land in the lower 48 states experiencing moderate drought or worse.
The drought is threatening to have a severe impact on major agricultural crops, from wheat farmers in Kansas to vegetable farmers in Georgia."
https://time.com/article/2026/05/10/drought-US-farmers-crops-climate-change/
"Fruit tree production in the Intermountain West, which covers Colorado, Utah and Idaho, is threatened by diminishing water supplies, spring frosts, variable winter temperatures and soils that are above the ideal pH range for peach trees. Further exacerbating the environmental stresses are pest problems and the persistent cytospora canker disease."
https://theconversation.com/a-fungal-disease-along-with-climate-change-threatens-colorados-prized-peaches-263246
#ClimateInflation
"A new report released by Trace One reveals that natural disasters are now extracting a $5.1 billion annual toll from the U.S. agricultural sector."
And guess who gets to pay for that:
"The report suggests that climate-driven events—ranging from catastrophic flooding in the South to record freezes in Florida—are becoming permanent fixtures of food price inflation."
"Nebraska’s winter wheat farmers could be abandoning much of their crop this year due to one of the most devastating droughts on record.
The USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service predicted this month that 580,000 acres will be harvested. That’s about 225,000 acres lower than last year’s harvest. Eighty-five percent of wheat acres were harvested last year, but only 64% is expected to be harvested in 2026."
Kansas wheat crop could be worst since 1972
"The major wheat-producing region is facing punishing drought, tariffs, and high fertilizer prices.
Climate change, caused by the burning of gas, oil, and coal, has made farming a number of crops increasingly challenging over the years, experts say, and wheat is no exception."
"Farmers across the continent have begun to sound the alarm over weather projections in recent weeks, with a regional lobby group in the Netherlands recently warning of stress from prolonged heat and drought. Last month, the young farmers association in Aragón, in Spain, warned of a possible “catastrophe” for cereal crops because of extreme heat and lack of rain."
"Disruptions in agricultural production can lead to supply shortages, higher food prices, and volatility in international markets. For example, the 2022 heatwave in India and Pakistan caused a 15–20% reduction in wheat production, contributing to a spike in global wheat prices and increased inflationary pressures in food-importing countries.
Between 2000 and 2020, climate-related disruptions contributed to a 25% increase in global food price volatility."
Agriculture sits at the epicenter of climate risk and climate solutions. It is acutely vulnerable to heat, droughts, floods, and storms, while the food system itself contributes a substantial share of global greenhouse gas emissions across land use change, enteric fermentation, fertilizer production, energy use, and waste.
"Heatwaves are becoming more extreme and frequent, making it harder to grow food crops.
While summer heatwaves are making headlines, Professor Atkin said they could and did occur at other times of the year when temperatures pushed above the normal during the day and night.
That includes during spring, a critical time for wheat flowering."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-04/extreme-heatwaves-threatening-crops-food-supply-australia/106745486
#ClimateInflation
CelloMom On Cars
