It’s not just the threats of commercial tariffs that scare food producers and consumers across the planet. A recent study shows that climate change has generated price peaks caused by extreme events. British potatoes, California vegetables, south-African corn, Indian onions and even Brazilian coffee are some of the recently hit foods, according to an international team of scientists.
The Food Foundation survey, in cooperation with the Barcelona Supercomputation Center, shows that on average healthy foods cost twice as much healthy foods. Thus, when prices go up, low-income families probably reduce the consumption of nutritious foods such as fruits and vegetables simply because they cannot buy them.
Therefore, the study concludes that increases in climate change -induced food prices can exacerbate a number of health problems: from malnutrition – lack of nutrients, especially in children with greater nutritional needs – to various chronic dietary diseases such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes and various types of cancer.

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There are also a growing number of studies that connect food insecurity and diets poor to mental health.
The study, led by Maximilian Kotz of downtown Barcelona, analyzed 16 cases in 18 countries between 2022 and 2024, where price increases were associated with heat waves, droughts or extreme rainfall, many of which exceeded any historical precedent prior to 2020.
For Brazil, the case of the global coffee market was cited. The country is the world’s largest exporter, while Vietnam is the world’s largest exporter in the robust class. Global coffee prices rose 55% in August 2024 after the 2023 drought in Brazil, which scientists say it was 10 to 30 times more likely due to climate change. Robust coffee prices rose 100% in July 2024, after record waves in Vietnam and Asia.
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In the United Kingdom, it was mentioned that the price of potatoes rose 22% – between January and February 2024 – after extreme winter rains that scientists say it was 20% heavier and 10 times more likely due to climate change.
In California and Arizona in the United States, vegetable prices rose 80% in November 2022 after the extreme summer drought in the western states, which suffered from water shortage, extreme and dry heat from the soil during the summer of 2022.
There are also cases of Spain and Italy, where the 2022-2023 drought in southern Europe-to which scientists attribute more than 30% of the intensity and extension of the summer episode of 2022 due to global warming-led to an increase of 50% year by year in the price of olive oil in January 2024, added to the previous year increases. Spain produces more than two fifths of the world’s olive oil.
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In addition, global cocoa prices were 280% higher in April 2024, after the heat wave on Ivory Coast and in Ghana two months earlier, that scientists say it was 4 ° C warmer due to climate change. Together, these two countries respond for almost two thirds (60%) of global cocoa production.
In Mexico, fruits and vegetable prices rose 20% in January 2024 after the 2023 drought, one of the most severe in the country in more than a decade.
Check out the Global Climate Effects Map on Food Supply
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Cost is also social
“Until we reach zero liquid emissions, the extreme climate will only get worse and is already harming the plantations and making food more expensive worldwide. People are realizing: the increase in food prices is the second most perceived climate impact in their life, losing only to extreme heat,” said Maximilian Kotz, postdoctoral researcher Marie Curie in BSC and the main author of the study.
He also recalled that the central banks’ mandates to tame inflation can become harder to meet, as extreme climate makes food prices more volatile, both domestic and globally.
Already Amber Sawyer, analyst of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (Eciu), mentioned that last year, the United Kingdom had the third worst crop ever registered and in England the second worst, after extreme rains that scientists say it is 10 times more likely and 20% more intense due to climate change.
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“But that’s not all. British farmers have been oscillating between extremes in recent years. They have gone from an extreme heat wave in 2022 – when temperatures have first reached 40 ° C – for extreme rainfall at the end of 2023 and early 2024, both harming their plantations,” he said, now they have just faced the hottest spring from the beginning of the records, and the dried sixth. For them, climate change is not a future warning: it is their daily reality.
“These extremes also affect consumers. In the UK, climate change added £ 360 to the average food account per family only between 2022 and 2023. And since then, we have had even more extreme climatic events. The planet has warmed about 1.3 ° C above pre-industrial levels. But the UN analysis indicates that the current course is leading to a warming of about 3 ° C, which they describe as they describe as they describe “Devastating”.
The survey was published days before the UN food dome balance on Sunday (27), where world leaders will meet to discuss threats to the global food system. The event is co-organized by Ethiopia and Italy, both countries hit by increasing food prices caused by climate change, and both included in the study.