A 300 per cent spike in Australian\u00a0lettuce prices. A 50 per cent rise for European olive oil\u00a0and\u00a080 per cent for US vegetables. <\/p>\n
Researchers from the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre and the European Central Bank\u00a0have traced back those price jumps to extreme weather they say is linked to climate change.<\/p>\n
The group analysed 16\u00a0weather events around\u00a0the world between 2022 and 2024. <\/p>\n
Many were so unusual that a given region had experienced nothing like it prior to 2020, according to the analysis, which was published in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Research Letters on July 21 in Europe.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cUnprecedented conditions are set to become increasingly common across the world,\u201d the study\u2019s authors said. <\/p>\n
\u201cAt the same time, new records for extreme conditions will continue to be set, further from those to which agricultural production and economic systems are currently adapted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Climate change brings with it higher temperatures and extreme rain, which can lower yields\u00a0and make\u00a0the crops that are harvested\u00a0more\u00a0expensive. <\/p>\n
British households\u2019 food bill, for instance, was \u00a3361 (S$622) more\u00a0in 2022 and 2023 due to climate change, according to estimates by the non-profit\u00a0Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit. <\/p>\n
Consumers globally say they are feeling the effects of climate change on their grocery bills, making food unaffordable for some and posing a challenge\u00a0for central bankers trying to tame inflation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Here are a few of the price hikes the researchers identified:<\/p>\n
In 2022, California registered its driest three-year period ever recorded, leaving\u00a0nearly a million acres of farm fields unplanted and producing initial crop revenue losses of nearly US$2 billion (S$2.5 billion) that year alone. <\/p>\n
Arizona, which grows most of the US\u2019 winter lettuce\u00a0supply, also saw reductions in the amount of water the state received from the Colorado River, due to a drought-related water shortage in the river basin. <\/p>\n
These conditions in two major US agricultural states, paired with Hurricane Ian hitting\u00a0Florida,\u00a0contributed to a more than 80 per cent hike in the country\u2019s vegetable prices compared with the previous year.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
A heatwave that warmed Asia in 2024 to temperatures as high as 46 deg Celsius was one of the disruptive weather events that led to\u00a0vegetable prices in China\u00a0rising\u00a0more than 40 per cent between June and September.<\/p>\n
Hot and dry conditions also left South Korean cabbages nearly 70 per cent more expensive than the year prior, according to local media reports. Napa cabbage is commonly pickled into kimchi, a staple local dish, and the government has utilised national stocks to bolster supplies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Eastern Australia faced record-breaking extreme flooding in early 2022, which was soon estimated to be Australia\u2019s costliest ever flood and its fifth-most costly disaster. <\/p>\n
A resulting lettuce shortage led shoppers to complain about\u00a0prices of around A$12 (S$10) for a head of iceberg lettuce. <\/p>\n
The lettuce previously cost roughly A$2.80 a piece, according to The Guardian, representing a more than 300 per cent price increase.\u00a0Fast food chain KFC even began\u00a0substituting in cabbage in its burgers.<\/p>\n
Prices tend to respond as soon as one or two months after an instance of extreme heat or drought,\u00a0said\u00a0Mr Max Kotz, the study\u2019s lead author and a postdoctoral fellow at the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre. <\/p>\n
He and the other authors also looked at how unusual weather events were for each\u00a0region, based on the distribution of measures like temperature over time.<\/p>\n
They found that heat, drought and floods were occurring at an increased intensity and frequency.\u00a0El Nino, a climate pattern that occurred from 2023 to 2024, likely also influenced the extreme weather observed, the authors said.<\/p>\n
These kinds of food price shocks typically turn out to be short-term in nature, because high prices incentivise more production, which brings prices back down, said Mr Andrew Stevenson, a senior climate analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence.<\/p>\n
Products like coffee and cattle are the exception, because they require certain conditions such as a tropical climate or large swathes of land for grazing that limit where they can be grown and bred. <\/p>\n
Coffee and cattle futures, contracts that represent near-term pricing in those markets, have marched up in price since 2020 \u2013 in contrast with futures for a crop like corn that is more easily grown.<\/p>\n
New US tariffs could further squeeze farmers abroad, said Mr Stevenson. \u201cIt puts producers in an uncomfortable position where the\u00a0price of beef is too expensive to sell at home but not expensive enough to sell with a 50 per cent tariff,\u201d he added.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Extreme weather is only expected to continue, and the study recommends that countries consider policies that will help consumers manage rising food prices.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ultimately, though, slashing greenhouse gas emissions and containing global warming will be key to reducing food price inflation risks, the authors said. <\/p>\n
Climate forecasts can also provide early warnings, and farms can implement adaptations like irrigation, though both approaches have serious limitations. BLOOMBERG<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 300 per cent spike in Australian\u00a0lettuce prices. A 50 per cent rise for European olive oil\u00a0and\u00a080 per…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[64,63,75,128],"class_list":["post-10202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}