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Climate Change and You: Food Price Shocks
- This edition of Mint's climate change newsletter discusses the impact of climate shocks on food prices.
Dear Reader,
Earlier this month, I travelled for a few days in Nashik, India’s grape and wine capital. Farmers from Nashik now export premium table grapes to Europe and other western markets. They receive two to three times the price from exports compared to when they sell to domestic buyers. In a good year, a ten-acre-grower can hope to make upwards of ₹25 lakh in profit, a minor fortune in rural India. But that’s not all. Farmers also say they spend sleepless nights when the weather turns adverse. Untimely rains or hailstorms at the flowering stage or during the harvest season- which is becoming more frequent due to climate change- can damage grapes which are very sensitive. Even 2 mm of rain when the berries are ripe leads to a crack on the surface, rendering them useless for export markets. This is a reason why only well-to-do farmers indulge in table grapes for export. For a marginal farmer with a low-risk appetite, a season’s loss is too large a blow.
State of the Climate
Grapes are a minor crop in India’s vast and diverse farm basket. But major ones like wheat, rice, onions, tomatoes, and pulses have borne the brunt of freak weather in recent years, pushing retail prices through the roof. Just in Nashik, also a major producer of onions, the last two harvests were affected by unseasonal rains, which is why onion prices shot up in the past few months, prompting the government to transport onions by trains.
In October, vegetable prices were a staggering 42% higher year-on-year, pushing retail food inflation to a high of 10.9%. A month later, perishables prices cooled a bit but still they were 29% higher year-on-year.
Due to recurrent climate shocks, food inflation has turned endemic, the central bank warned in a paper earlier this year. It observed that food inflation averaged 6.3% during the 2020s (June 2020 to June 2024), compared to just 2.9% between 2016-2020. This sharp divergence was largely due to supply shocks following adverse climate events.
Adverse climate affects crop productivity in multiple ways. In recent years, heavy and extreme rainfall days have increased during the monsoon season. In addition, extreme heat is taking its toll. Every degree of increase in temperature can reduce wheat production by 4-5 million tons. Come to think of it, after a heatwave crippled the wheat crop in 2022, prices have remained elevated two years later. And for some varieties of pulses, production has fluctuated due to wayward rains.
It’s not just crops, dairy animals too are impacted by heat stress. Some studies suggest that milk output in India, the largest producer in the world, could see a 25% decline by the end of this century. That will affect millions of small dairy farmers who survive on the regular earnings from milk sales.
So, how can one protect farm output from climate risks? One solution is to invest in research to deliver climate-resilient varieties. However, farm research funding in India continues to be paltry, and most of it is spent on field crops like rice and wheat, which is why the enterprising grape farmers of Nashik did not wait for the government. They purchased exclusive rights to grow patented varieties from an international breeder by paying a hefty sum of ₹35 crore.
For perishables, one way to stabilize supplies is processing. For instance, there is no reason for tomato prices to fluctuate between ₹20 to ₹120 per kg in a matter of months. Yet they do. Processing the produce into puree can stabilize both consumer and farmgate prices. This will require more than just investing in processing infrastructure. Consumer awareness is critical to push households to use pureed tomatoes when supplies are short. Green peas were once consumed only during winters, but now quick-frozen peas are used throughout the year, both by hotels and restaurants and in family kitchens. The same can be replicated in tomatoes.
The climate crisis will hit our food basket in multiple ways, and firefighting will not be of much use. Rather than spending on cash transfers to farmers, it would be wise to spend scarce resources on public research and processing infrastructure.
The news in brief
-The ways climate change impacts the lives of people can be very different, but in 2024, these impacts were everywhere, from polling agents dying of heatstroke during the Lok Sabha elections to hundreds killed in landslides in Kerala’s Wayanad during the monsoon, writes Bibek Bhattacharya in this detailed review of the year gone by.
-This Howindialives data story in Mint looks at the challenges facing India’s solar sector in the backdrop of the bribery charges faced by the Adani group. Ever wondered, why is it that solar power accounts for 20% of installed capacity but contributes just 7% to energy supplied?
-Failing to address climate issues plaguing major Indian cities can lead to mass migration to more habitable ones like Bengaluru and Pune, thinks Infosys cofounder Narayana Murthy. Earlier this year, I wrote this long story about why Delhi has become inhabitable for the most part of the year.
-This data story in Mint is a review of sustainability challenges faced by India as the climate crisis deepens: from slowing electric vehicle sales to cities under the grip of a pollution emergency.
-India’s total forest and tree cover has grown to over a quarter of its geographical area, but the increased green cover has come from plantations and agroforestry while vast swathes of natural forests have degraded over the past decade, as per the latest Forest Survey of India report.
Climate Change Tracker
Some of the most pressing issues of our times- biodiversity loss, water and food insecurity, health risks and climate change – are all interconnected. They interact and compound each other in ways that make separate efforts to address them ineffective and counterproductive, says a newreport by the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
The IPBES Nexus Assessment report underlined that more than half of global gross domestic product, around $50 trillion of annual economic activity, is moderately to highly dependent on nature. However, current decision-making has prioritized short-term financial returns. The report estimates that the unaccounted-for costs of current approaches to economic activity – reflecting impacts on biodiversity, water, health, and climate change, including from food production – are at least $10-25 trillion per year.
According to the report, $5.3 trillion of annual private sector financial flows are directly damaging biodiversity, while another $1.7 trillion of public subsidies of annual public subsidies are incentivizing damage to biodiversity, distorting trade and increasing pressure on natural resources.
Know Your Jargon
Blue Carbon
Carbon dioxide captured by earth’s coastal and marine ecosystems is known asblue carbon. When human activities like industries, power plants and vehicles emit CO2, a part of this atmospheric carbon is captured and stored (or sequestered) by oceans, which act as a carbon sink. Marine ecosystems like salt marshes, mangroves and sea grasses are smaller when compared to the size of tropical forests but they sequester carbon at a much faster rate and help keep global warming in check.
Globally, blue carbon ecosystems store 6–12 gigatonnes (billion metric tonnes) of carbon—equivalent to the carbon emitted by all gas-fired power stations over the course of four years.
When coastal ecosystems are damaged, the stored carbon is released back into the atmosphere. For instance, carbon emissions from mangrove destruction are estimated to account for up to a tenth of the global emissions due to deforestation. Besides storing carbon, salt marshes and mangroves also prevent pollutant runoff to the seas and protect coastal communities from storm surges and floods. Blue carbon, therefore, is essential to both climate mitigation and adaptation.
Prime Number
8.1
An estimated 8.1 million deaths globally are attributed to air pollution, according to the 2024 State of the Global Air Report. Air pollution is also the second leading cause of death for children under five, after malnutrition. In 2021, over 700,000 deaths among children were linked to air pollution- a count of about 2,000 deaths every day, including 570,000 neonatal (within the first four weeks of birth) deaths.
Air pollution and climate change are related. PM2.5 (particulate matter less than 2.5 microns in size) pollution arises from burning of fossil fuels and biomass in sectors like transportation, residential homes, coal-burning power plants, industrial activities, and wildfires. These are the same sources which contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and global warming.
According to the report, air pollution is the second leading risk factor for early death, after high blood pressure. Polluted air also outranks tobacco as a leading cause of death and disability.
If you’re wondering how air pollution impacts mortality numbers in Indian cities, look up this recent study published in The Lancet.
Movie of the Month
The 2023 docuseries on Netflix, Life on Our Planet, narrated by Morgan Freeman, will take you on a 4-billion-year breathtaking ride, from the beginning of life to multiple mass extinction events. The last such event happened 66 million years ago when 78% of all life including dinosaurs was wiped out.
Experts believe that a sixth extinction is underway—with the planet losing species much faster than normal extinction rates—driven by human actions and unsustainable resource use. Yet, there is hope because humans are the only species to grasp what is happening to the world and what needs to be done.
That’s all, for now. Bibek will be back with the next issue, in a fortnight. Wish you all a happy new year in advance.
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First Published:28 Dec 2024, 07:00 AM IST
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