How the climate crisis threatens our food — and the people that grow it

All across the world, harvests that we have long depended on to provide the foods that we know and love are faltering. Spanish olives, Floridian oranges, Ghanaian cocoa beans and Costa Rican pineapples are among the harvests impacted by climate shocks over the past few years, which have impacted the supplies – and prices – of food on supermarket shelves.

This escalating climate risk is one of many reasons why NGOs and ethical investors are campaigning hard for the UK to introduce mandatory checks on the environmental impact and human rights in supply chains, as part of a campaign that is being described as a “once-in-a-decade” opportunity to clean up the UK’s footprint on the world.

As things stand, the lack of due diligence law means that there is a lack of clear data on just how many companies are effectively monitoring and responding to risks in supply chains in the UK. But the indicators we do have suggest it is very few, with a recent assessment finding that food and drinks companies scored an average of 15/100 in their labour standards monitoring efforts.

Introducing a new supply chain law would mean that measures can be put in place to ensure that the foods we love remain available year-round and at a fair price, according to campaigners.

It would also help ensure that the farmers and suppliers at the other end of the chain receive a fair deal, which will in turn allow them to better adapt to the climate crisis.

Evidence for why we need bolster up our food systems against the climate threat can be found in the many months of high inflation that the UK has experienced recently, which the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee warned in an August report was at least in part driven by extreme weather around the world pushing up the cost of certain foods.

Among the crops pushing up the price was coffee, with data showing prices in commodity markets – including Arabica beans from Brazil and Robusta beans from Vietnam – rising sharply through 2023 and 2024, after unusually hot and dry weather in both countries.

These rises were followed by a notable rise in the Consumer Price Inflation (CPI) of coffee in the UK.

Data also shows that inflation of beef and dairy products in the UK was also particularly high. Successive years of weather extremes – including summer droughts, unseasonal rainfall, and flooding – reduced pasture productivity and disrupted grazing patterns across much of the UK. Droughts in the Brazilian Amazon and pasture fires in Australia pushed up the price of beef imports from those markets at the same time.

Climate extremes also hit dairy outputs, pushing the inflation rate for butter up to 18.9 per cent year-on-year across 2025. Without action, such situations will become more common in the future, experts warn.

"These climate-related food price risks could get significantly worse,” says Christian Jaccarini, from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit. “We’ve already crossed one climate tipping point – the point of no return for warm water coral reefs – with major implications for fisheries worldwide. And as the government's own recent national security assessment says, every critical global ecosystem is now on ‘a pathway to collapse’”.

“This would have would have profound consequences, including water insecurity, reduced crop yields, loss of arable land, fisheries collapse, heightened disease risks, and accelerating climate change,” he adds.

For the time being, wealthier countries that supply Britain’s food, like Brazil and Australia, are able to invest in new technologies to hedge against climate risks.

“There’s been a lot of progress in farming technologies that has continued to drive yield improvements,” explains Sabine Altendorf, an economist at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). “New machinery like drones, the precision application of pesticides and fertilisers, and technologies like drip irrigation [involving the slow, even application of low-pressure water] are all driving improvements.”

These technologies are “very expensive”, however, Altendorf adds. For the small-scale farmers in developing countries that supply around one-third of the world’s food - and a large share of tea, coffee, cocoa, and tropical fruits that we consume in the UK - they remain largely out of reach for now, leaving them struggling to adapt in the face of climate shocks.

“While agriculture yields have so far held up globally, among small-holder farmers we are seeing climate and adverse weather conditions lead to really dire consequences,” explains Altendorf.

The difficulties they are facing are made worse by pricing from Global North retailers, which has left “bananas and pineapples often-times cheaper than domestic fruits like cherries or apples,” says Altendorf.

What’s more, aid programmes that have historically supported farmers adapt to climate change are increasingly under threat as countries like the US and UK reduce their overseas spending. US funding for the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which runs a lot of climate adaptation programmes in developing countries, more than halved year-on-year, for example.

The decline in public money for aid programmes is another reason why campaigners are suggesting mandatory supply chain due diligence in the UK is important, as it will help ensure that UK trade and investment abroad actually brings fair profits for those supplying our food.

"With the reductions in official development assistance by the UK and globally, and the ongoing climate emergency, we should be viewing ethical trade including through mandatory Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence (HREDD) as a cost-effective way to put our principles into practice,” Martin Rhodes, the Labour MP and chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Fairtrade, tells The Independent.

“The Government’s recent trade strategy contains very welcome and strong commitments to embedding human rights and environmental standards into trade policy. I hope the responsible business conduct review builds on this and leads to a clear commitment to introduce HREDD in the next Parliamentary Session."

News on whether the UK will introduce a mandatory supply chain law is currently expected in March, according to campaigners.

This article has been produced as part of The Independent’s Rethinking Global Aid project