Stephen Cadogan: Storms gathering on the horizon
Part A In Farmers Picture: Near A Make Of As Morenatti Policies Northeast During Barricades After Blocking Eu February Mollerussa, Protests Over Highway Spain, Protest Photo/emilio Ap
How much longer can your favourite foods withstand the threat of climate change?
Not for long, says the European Environment Agency’s latest assessment, reporting climate risks at critical levels, which could become catastrophic without urgent and decisive action.
The EEA said climate change threatens Europe’s crop production and food security.
If the worst comes to the worst, Southern Europe might go hungry first — the EEA highlighted the heat and drought crop risks for Mediterranean countries.
But climate and the weather are full of surprises, and it is too much water that threatens Irish food producers.
Irish Farmers Association (IFA) deputy president Alice Doyle recently said the very wet spring has left farmers under serious pressure.
February rainfall was above average nearly everywhere in Ireland, and there was no let-up in March, with more than three times the average rainfall for early March at some locations.
How could that affect the Irish-produced food in our shops and on our tables?
Ireland’s strengths are in meat and milk production, there is no chance we will ever run short of those commodities. However, the rains made it impossible for most farmers to plant and sow in good time last autumn and this spring.
That might be bad news for breakfast porridge fans. A Teagasc survey indicate only 62% of the intended winter grain crops were sown, and growers’ hopes of catching up in the spring have been dashed.
Oats was the grain crop hardest hit when rain hindered planting in the autumn, and planting spring oats has also been rained off. Ireland cannot grow bread-making wheat, we import our flour. And most of our other grain crops are for animal feed.
However, the supply of potatoes and vegetables for our tables is also hit by the rainy autumn and spring.
For two years in a row, Irish field vegetable growers have been hit by bad weather, which reduced yields and caused the complete loss of some crops. That could mean the end for a few more of the estimated 60 commercial scale growers of field vegetables left. Whenever one of these large growers exits the business, other growers are not taking up the slack.
For many, the first taste of Irish new potatoes each year is an eagerly awaited food event. This year, they will have to wait and wait, because soils are waterlogged, leaving little or no opportunity to plant early potato crops.
Many potato crops went unharvested last autumn after the rains started, and are now written off. Potato stocks are increasingly tightening, with upwards price pressure, according to the IFA.
Supply gaps may not be easily filled by imports, because bad winter and spring weather also damaged crops in Denmark, the Baltic Sea region, the Benelux countries, and the UK.
There are all the signs of climate change making it tough for food producers across Europe, with drought hitting coastal areas in Spain, central and southern Italy, south-western Romania, Greece, and Cyprus.
How can farmers respond? Dutch agricultural scientists are studying placing of fixed tracks on farms or use of lighter machinery with caterpillar treads, to overcome the increased winter rainfall associated with climate change. They are also looking for weatherproof crop varieties.
How badly can climate affect the food supply in our shops?
In 2021, Brazil’s coffee plantations experienced a drought, then a devastating frost. Global wholesale coffee prices spiked. From May to November in 2021, the coffee price rose by 45%.
Brazil’s crop recovered, leading to more stable prices for Arabica beans, but the price of Robusta beans was estimated at 28% higher in 2023 than in 2022, due to unusually dry conditions in Indonesia.
According to the EU’s European Environment Agency, when extreme weather affects multiple producers of a key commodity at once, the effects can be particularly severe.
Simultaneous droughts and extreme heat have caused upheaval in global rice production, with Italy (which grows about half the EU’s rice) sowing its smallest crop in a quarter-century in 2023, even as Thailand’s crop was reduced by dry weather, California’s by drought, and India’s by damage from monsoon rains.
India (which accounts for about 40% of global rice exports) imposed a ban on non-basmati white rice exports (in order to protect its domestic supplies). Global rice prices rose by 15-25%, with particularly dire effects on poor people in South Asia and Africa.
We are all familiar too with the skyrocketing price of olive oil. Again, climate is blamed.
In January, in Portugal, olive oil was 69.1% more expensive than a year previously. While the price rise averaged 50% in the EU, it was 62.9% in Spain, the world’s biggest olive oil producer. That compares with a general annual food price inflation of only 4.8%.
The explanation is that drought and extreme heatwaves halved olive yields in Mediterranean countries in 2023. Climate change and global trade also brought damaging plant pests such as the Xylella fastidiosa bacterium, which has seriously damaged the olive groves of Southern Europe in the last 10 years.
The supply falls, so the price must rise.
Yes, food production depends on the weather, and long before climate change was accepted, famine stalked the world when nature turned against food producers.
But the consumers of rich Europe are insulated from these grim realities.
The EU is the world’s number three importer of food and agricultural products. European consumers depend on non-EU fruits and nuts to the tune of more than €20bn per year, and a similar value of coffee, tea, cocoa, and spices.
Maybe this is the real food and climate crux for the EU’s 400 million citizens. ‘Is Europe feeding or eating the world?’ is the question on the lips of many worried about climate change.
Analysis by the World Wildlife Fund indicates that while the EU is a net exporter in monetary terms, it is a net food importer in terms of calories, nutrients and protein (this is debatable, because most of the imported protein is in livestock feeds that cannot eaten by humans).
What is less debatable is that heavy reliance on food imports, mostly of raw products for processing within Europe, is often linked to worldwide deforestation and loss of natural ecosystems which affect climate.
It is not such a big question for Irish consumers. Most of our food imports come from nearby in the EU, even if we are a net importer of fruits and vegetables (and grains and oilseeds, mostly for livestock).
Other European countries depend more on imported food than Ireland, and it is clear EU importers search far and wide around the world in order to keep the supermarket shelves full of relatively cheap foods.
Consumers might be surprised to find the EU still imports large amounts of food from Russia. In the first 10 months of 2023, EU countries imported an estimated €2.2bn worth of Russian food products, like dairy products, fruit, vegetables, sugar, confectionery, flour, cereals, and animal feed.
The imports may fill gaps in the EU’s own supply, but it is more likely the Russian produce is so cheap that importers cannot resist.
Onions may be the best example of the food industry’s inability to resist a bargain. Poland is among the top 10 largest global exporters of onions. But prices in Russia are 2.5 times lower than in Poland, and Poland imported more than 24,000 tons of fresh onions from Russia in recent years.
Sanctions against Russia do not apply to food and agriculture (nor fertiliser, which the EU requires in huge amounts for its farms). However, the EU is now preparing to impose tariffs of up to 50% on grain imports from Russia and Belarus (including sunflower meal, of which one third of Russian exports goes to the EU).
Africa is also a more important supplier to the EU’s supermarkets than many consumers may realise. South Africa is a leading exporter to the EU, and an EU trade agreement with Kenya will soon increase quota-free and duty-free market access for both sides, boosting Kenyan exports to the EU such as flowers, tea, coffee, and vegetables.
Since 2022, Egyptian citrus exports to the EU increased by 120% to 457,077 tons, the Netherlands was the largest importer, with nearly half of the total.
In February, fresh produce from Saudi Arabia, such as tomatoes, was exported to Europe for the first time.
With fewer red onions being planted across Europe, prices jumped, and this attracted imports from every corner of the world, including Tasmania, Chile, Peru, Argentina, New Zealand, and Senegal.
Consumers may reply even more on non-EU produce in the shops, if EU farmers follow up this year’s unprecedented protest actions by reducing production.
They say their farms are becoming unprofitable because the EU has been over-ambitious in its drive to simultaneously decarbonise European agriculture, keep food affordable for its consumers, and drive a global transition to more sustainable food and land use systems.
With the EU also opening its borders to cheap food imports from Ukraine, as part of its support for its war-ravaged neighbour, Europe’s farmers inevitably rebelled.