Spot Shortages, Price Spikes For Rice, Onions, Olive Oil; Food Supply "At Inflection Point" - UNFAO [View all]

Last edited Sat Sep 30, 2023, 01:10 PM - Edit history (1)

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How do you cook a meal when a staple ingredient is unaffordable? This question is playing out in households around the world as they face shortages of essential foods like rice, cooking oil and onions. That is because countries have imposed restrictions on the food they export to protect their own supplies from the combined effect of the war in Ukraine, El Nino’s threat to food production and increasing damage from climate change.

For Caroline Kyalo, a 28-year-old who works in a salon in Kenya’s capital of Nairobi, it was a question of trying to figure out how to cook for her two children without onions. Restrictions on the export of the vegetable by neighboring Tanzania has led prices to triple. Kyalo initially tried to use spring onions instead, but those also got too expensive. As did the prices of other necessities, like cooking oil and corn flour. “I just decided to be cooking once a day,” she said.

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He isn’t the only one. Global food security is already under threat since Russia halted an agreement allowing Ukraine to export wheat and the El Nino weather phenomenon hampers rice production. Now, rice prices are soaring — Vietnam’s rice export prices, for instance, have reached a 15-year high — putting the most vulnerable people in some of the poorest nations at risk. The world is at an “inflection point,” said Beau Damen, a natural resources officer with the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization based in Bangkok. Even before India’s restrictions, countries already were frantically buying rice in anticipation of scarcity later when the El Nino hit, creating a supply crunch and spiking prices.

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The full extent of the damage won’t be known until after harvest time in October and November, but European olive oil production could sink by 700,000 metric tons — a fall of more than 30% — compared to the five-year average, Holland said. Bulk prices for olive oil have doubled compared to the same time last year and all indications point to a shortfall in the next harvest, Zanre said. “There doesn’t seem to be any respite on the horizon,” he said, adding “the industry is in crisis.” The International Olive Council stopped short of calling the situation a crisis, but a spokesperson said “we are facing a complex situation as a consequence of climate change.” Globally, olive oil production is predicted to drop 20% between October 2022 and September 2023, the spokesperson told CNN.

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https://climatecrocks.com/2023/09/29/creeping-climate-food-shortages-as-countries-limit-exports/