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Inside Out | Oranges just the latest food hit by climate change. They won’t be the last
- After bananas and coffee, citrus fruits are now succumbing to disease and weather as Brazil’s crop collapses
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The world’s hydra-headed “polycrisis” takes many shapes, large and small. Over the past month, another symptom has reared its head: think orange juice and a citrus crisis.
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A combination of drought, disease and demand – the three Ds affecting many of the world’s most important food crops and arousing fears of food insecurity – is jeopardising a favourite breakfast staple of the rich world and an important source of vitamin C through the temperate world’s long, dark winters.
As a fatal fungus threatens global banana supplies and climate change squeezes coffee prices and supplies, the hunt is on for a range of breakfast substitutes.
Of course, pests and inclement weather have waged a steady battle against farmers for centuries, attacking staples such as wheat, cassava, maize and cotton. As far back as the 1800s, blight caused the Irish potato famine and the phylloxera epidemic destroyed many vineyards in Europe. And today, pests destroy up to 20 per cent of the world’s crops every year, at an annual cost of around US$220 billion.
But global warming and the pests that thrive on a warmer planet are steadily making things worse.
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In Brazil, cultivator of over a third of the world’s oranges and by far the biggest exporter of orange juice at 70 per cent, experts are warning of a crash in orange production and sharply higher prices for the growing season. Brazil’s orange crop is expected to fall by 24 per cent from the previous harvest in what will be its smallest since the 1980s. Global orange juice prices – already close to double a year ago – are rising ever higher.
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