YOU may not have already heard it, but for the past few months there has been talk of a “potato crisis”, with predictions that tatties, already up 19.9 per cent, could double in price this winter, and remain high through to 2024. Cue a panic in the chippies, as well as your average Scottish household – and of course, it’s not just about the tatties. For, as we know now, the cost of food is rising to add to our bills pain this winter. Pasta up 22.7%, low-fat milk 42.7%.
In 2022, according to a report by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, climate change and fossil fuel prices could cause food inflation to rise to around 11 per cent, raising average household monthly spending by £33.90 and shopping bills by around £400 per year, as many are thrown into both food and fuel poverty.
When it comes to blame, media has generally lasered-in on energy prices, the impact of the war in Ukraine and its affect on energy and fertiliser prices. Less frequently mentioned is the impact of climate change,and extreme weather events, including this summer’s scorching heatwave across Europe. Yet, according to the ECIU, of that extra £33.90 on your shopping bill, £14.23 is estimated to be due to the effects of climate change.
Potatoes are part of that story. The tubers require plenty of water to grow – something that hasn’t been in too short supply historically in Scotland, but was scarce in some areas this year. Such is the concern that experts have predicted that we may struggle under more frequent droughts to grow them. Last month, Lesley Torrance of the James Hutton institute observed: “We’re expecting hotter and drier summers. There’ll be many more plant-heat stress days, as many as 60 by 2030 – that’s only eight years away. It could dramatically affect the types of crops we can grow and where we grow them. We might still be able to produce some potatoes in the north of Scotland, but we really need to do something now.”
Drought and heat are an increasing worry across Europe. According to the World Weather Attribution service, the droughts seen across the northern hemisphere this summer were made “at least 20 times more likely” by human-caused climate change.
In the August 2022 report Drought in Europe, the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre forecast that grain maize yields in the EU would drop by 16%, as would soybeans by 15%, and sunflowers by 12%, compared to the five-year average. Italy, which supplies half of the EU rice, has not had substantial rains in the north since November 2021. Severe drought has affected the country’s paddy fields (which produce 1.5 million tons of rice). Losses of more than 30% of the harvest have been estimated. Meanwhile, Pakistan saw 80% of its rice crops drowned in floods.
While on holiday in wildfire-ravaged France this summer, I saw how this year has been a wake-up call in parts of Europe. It feels as if here, in Scotland, that awareness is not quite so acute. But, as the potato story tells us, we don’t have to look outside these islands to find climate-related food supply problems. Harvests of potatoes, onions, sugar beet, apples and hops are expected to fall short by 10-50% in the UK – and that is unlikely to be a one-off. This summer, the Met Office updated projections for changes to the UK climate, saying there was an increased chance of warmer, wetter winters and hotter, drier summers in the UK during the rest of the century and that the UK faced an increase in both the frequency and intensity of weather extremes. We can expect food inflation to stay with us if those droughts keep coming.
But the story is far more serious than rising prices, particularly in lower latitudes. An IPCC report published earlier this year predicted: “If the current rate of emissions continues, the impacts will worsen, especially after mid-century, with rapid growth in the number and severity of extreme weather events. Yields of plants, animals and aquaculture will decline in most places, and marine and inland fisheries will suffer. Food production in some regions will become impossible, either because the crops or livestock there cannot survive in the new climatic conditions, or it is too hot and humid for farm workers to be in the fields.”
What we see in our rising shopping basket receipts is a toxic combination of energy price inflation and what’s been called heatflation. It’s a storm of different factors in which drought has compounded the problems triggered by the war in Ukraine and post-Brexit labour shortages. None of these is a factor we can ignore – but climate is particularly set to bite us hard if we do. If we don’t drive home net zero, whilst also battling food poverty now, the price will be more than an extra few pounds on a plate of fish and chips.
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