World food prices are already at their highest level since November 2023, and that pressure has not yet fully been transmitted to what you pay at the till.
UK inflation is already expected to breach 5% in 2026, partly as a result of these pressures and the Bank of England warns it could get worse.
Meanwhile, it's the developing world faces the sharpest pain. In countries where food takes the largest share of household income, price spikes tip millions into food insecurity. But the UK is not immune
None of these four pressures arose by accident. Each is the consequence of political choices: the decisions to wage war, to burn fossil fuels, to impose tariffs. And the political response so far is nowhere near equal to the scale of the threat. Will you go hungry? That's the question now? The possibility is real.
This is the audio version:
This is the transcript:
As Bloomberg have reported in the last week, the world's food supply is at massive risk at this moment as we face a quadruple attack on its stability, and I agree with them.
War in the Middle East, extreme heat, El Niño and Trump's tariff-based trade shocks are all hitting food supplies simultaneously. A single one of these might be manageable on its own, but together they are potentially catastrophic.
Food prices are already at their highest level since November 2023, according to the Bloomberg Index, and I think they could go very much higher still. This is not a future risk. It is unfolding now, and the question is, what's causing this and what can we do about it?
The fact is that the Strait of Hormuz is now closed, and all the messaging coming from Washington suggests that this is going to remain the case for some time to come. It is that fact, which is focusing attention on this issue, and we are wrong to think this is just about oil. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has also severely impacted fertiliser supply chains, and urea and ammonia, which are the core components of much fertiliser, are the foundations of modern crop production, and those supplies are being choked off by the war between the USA, and Israel and Iran.
At the same time, fuel shortages are already preventing farmers from operating machinery across Asia and Europe, and all of this matters.
The fact is modern farming depends on both fertiliser and fuel supplies to deliver what we need, which is food on our plates. This conflict has cut off some of those supplies at the worst possible moment, during the spring planting season. Governments are now racing to secure fertiliser stocks before the growing window closes because without fertiliser, this season's harvests are already being put at risk, and remember, this is not a one-year risk. Next season's seed supplies are grown this year, and if there's a food crisis this year, they may not be available in the quantities required. This then is not a one-year issue.
And heat is now another structural threat to food production. A new joint report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, plus the World Meteorological Organisation, finds that extreme heat events are rising sharply in frequency, intensity, and duration. Extreme heat intensity roughly doubles at two degrees of global warming and quadruples at three degrees, relative to a 1.5-degree increase in average global temperatures. So for every moment that we go beyond that 1.5-degree increase, the threat to world food supplies goes up, and for most major crops, yields decline as average temperatures go above 30 degrees Celsius, and that is a very real risk in major parts of the world right now.
For every additional degree of warming, maize and wheat yields are projected to fall by between four and 10%. And livestock faces heat stress at even lower temperatures, reducing productivity and increasing mortality amongst herds.
Meanwhile, marine heat waves have already caused an estimated £6.6 billion of losses in fishery production. This is really important. In 2025, more than 90% of the global ocean experienced at least one marine heat wave. Warming oceans reduced dissolved oxygen levels, causing fish cardiac failure, and population collapse. Marine heatwaves are now a regular feature of the global food system and not an occasional shock. Fishery losses compound pressure on protein supplies then, at exactly the moment when land-based crops are also failing. The World Meteorological Organisation describes extreme heat as a compounding risk that magnifies every other weakness in our food system.
And on top of all of this, El Niño is about to make everything worse. Forecasts point to the strongest El Niño effect in a decade, emerging this summer and affecting us all in the summer and autumn of 2026. Japan's weather bureau puts the probability at 70% whilst China fears it could persist until the year-end.
India is expecting below average monsoon range as a result, for the first time in three years, and the last comparable event to this, the 2015 to 2016 El Niño effect, caused widespread drought across Asia, and cut grain and oilseed outputs.
Some analysts argue that a severe El Niño now, coupled with drought and water scarcity, could matter more than the fertiliser shortages I've already talked about, and El Niño's reach is wide, although it can be very specific. Southeast Asia faces drought, threatening rice and palm oil production. A strong El Niño effect could reduce palm oil output by 5% to 12%, and the effects lag for up to 15 months. India's summer crops, including rice, cotton, and soybeans, are directly threatened by weakened monsoon rains and drier conditions are also forecast for the EU and the Black Sea region, compounding grain supply pressures, and note that in East Anglia, where I am filming this right now, we've had one millimetre of rain in the last month. We are already seeing drought conditions here.
On top of all of this, there are trade shocks to take into account. The Bloomberg framing of a quadruple attack includes Trump's tariff-based trade shocks as a distinct and separate threat from all the others. Trump's tariffs are disrupting the agricultural trade flows that countries depend on to offset domestic shortfalls. When conflict cuts supplies and tariffs cut trade, the normal adjustment mechanisms within global markets break down, and that is the risk we are facing now. Import-dependent nations, including the UK, are already facing higher fertiliser and fuel costs, and then lose access to affordable alternatives. The four pressures are not independent. They are reinforcing each other, and prices are already responding.
As I noted at the beginning of this video, the Bloomberg Agricultural Spot Index has risen for three consecutive months, and at the moment, crop prices are at their highest level since November 2023. The combination of war disruption, heat damage, and El Niño forecasts is already being priced in, and price rises at the commodity level always transmit to consumer food prices.
The inflationary pressure is then very real. It's likely to accelerate, and it's not yet fully reflected in what people are paying at the till.
The developing world, as ever, faces the sharpest pain from all of this. Farmers in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Vietnam are among the worst affected by fuel and fertiliser costs, and we know they are already being impacted. Reports in reliable sources like the New York Times are already highlighting this issue.
In countries where food takes up the largest share of household income, price spikes tip millions into food insecurity. That is the crisis we are now facing, and the United Nations has already warned of severe risks to global food security, with aid shipments also delayed by conflict, a factor which has to be taken into account. Those hit hardest and who are denied a voice on many of the decisions on the issues that are creating this crisis, on war, on emissions and on trade are seeing the greatest impacts as a result.
But the UK has not shielded. The UK could face food shortages as early as this summer. British farmers face the same rising fertiliser and fuel costs as their counterparts abroad. The UK's food import dependency means global price shocks are transmitted quite quickly to domestic consumers in this country, and UK inflation is already expected to breach 5% in 2026, partly as a result of these pressures, and the Bank of England is now warning it could get worse. No advanced economy is insulated from a disruption of this scale and this breadth, and the most vulnerable in our society will, of course, be impacted most. Do not rule out the possibility that some will suffer extreme hunger as a consequence.
There is one slight cushion available in all of this, and that is, according to Bloomberg, that global food inventories are currently higher than at the start of previous food crises. This has so far limited the full scale of commodity price increases, but inventories are only a buffer; they're not a solution. They deplete as supply disruption continues. If the conflict, El Niño and heat stress persist through the summer, that cushion will disappear very rapidly. The window for effective intervention to prevent all this happening is now, and not after the next harvest fails.
This is then political economy compounding crises. None of these four pressures arose by accident, a point that I have to stress. All are the consequence of political choices. The decision to wage war, to burn fossil fuels, to impose tariffs, each carries food system consequences. Those consequences fall hardest on people who had no voice in any of those decisions. Energy dependency, fertiliser dependency, and food import dependency are all long-term policy failures, and the vulnerabilities we are now exposed to has been decades in the making.
The question then is whether governments will act now. Emergency international coordination on fertiliser access and food security is needed at this moment. Food security must be treated as a strategic national interest, not just now, but in the future, and markets cannot by themselves dictate outcomes in this situation. Long-term investment in agricultural resilience, domestic food production, and input independence is essential. Climate change must be tackled.
Governments that treat this as a temporary market disruption will be overtaken by events. These four crises are real. They are converging, and the political response so far is nowhere near equal to the scale of the threat that we are facing, which is quite simply that people are going to go hungry, and some will die as a consequence of this multiple threat to world food supplies.
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1. 60/40 Uk imports vs production of fertiliser. 2. Large amounts of UK land is devoted to the production of food stocks to raise animals.
(& the raising of sheep on green deserts accelerates flooding in low lying areas).
Factlet: Regenisis, Chapter 4: 8 hectares of land can produce enough food to feed 500 families per year (@ circa 250kgs/family).
The UK, given its population will struggle to be self sufficient in food – but the way things are organised now, makes the situation much much worse.
Thus, this is a failure of organisation.
Much to agree with
Was the Clyde Valley not full of greenhouses in the 1960s?
I grew up on a farm in the Isle of Man and I now live in Scotland. You are being simplistic. Yes, growing grain for cereals is wasteful but so is most biofuel (unless using waste). However, much of Wales, Northern England and Scotland simply can’t be used for crops. Grass fed animals are the best option. Totally sustainable and has happened for millenia. Wool is also far better than polyester, etc. We could and should produce more timber, but that is the only real alternative. I went to Scotland’s only tomato farm last year (Standhill Farm) which produces 2% of Scotland ‘s annual tomatoes from 2 hectares of glasshouse. The dairy herd provides the methane for heating along with woodchips. Wind does electricity. Waste goes on the fields as fertiliser. Glasshouse is computer controlled. Tomatoes are on sale from April to November.
Mr Rideout, please read Regenesis Chapter 4. The 8 hectares was ultra poor quality land. Most of the grassy hills in Wales used to be forested – until the sheep came along. The balance is all wrong in terms of land use.
Liked the tomatoes and greenhouse example. This could be done with datacentres – which throw vast amounts of heat away 24/7 all year around. Main cost for greenhouses – heat. Most datacentres are happy to give the heat away – for nothing – I know, I’ve spoken to ’em.
If you slow down and actually look at what is happening – say – even as a result of BREXIT and Covid – subtle changes have been happening to the quality of life because what is actually happening is disruption to established systems of provision. These events gave us a window into the longer term consequences of global warming for example – they were warnings and although they have made some of us wake up not enough of the right people did so – and of course there has been a push back. Add in the fact that government here and elsewhere no longer see it as their job to mitigate the lives of their citizens in the supposed democracies they preside over and we have a recipe for human pain and degradation.
What makes this worse is that the prospect that instead of working together, all human beings will do is compete viciously for what is left or can be had. You are right to raise your concerns. Boy, do we need good leadership right now. Does everyone agree with me that right now, that leadership is so wanting?
Yes
That, and ideas
Richard – everything I have learnt about leadership involves having ideas. The two are indivisble.
Absolutely. Two letters now from me to my MP mentioning need for rationing; I hope that if I keep it up, at least some people will talk about it. But I am literally afraid, that nothing will be done. That many high in parliament don’t think practically or humanely any more.
Thank you
Sorry to bounce back but look at this:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/may/02/east-west-rail-oxford-milton-keynes-chiltern-railways-delays
I was left scratching my head at this – it makes you wonder where our priorities are? Who is holding up this new railway line? Did they make a contribution to a political party? Or are government departments so depleted that there are not enough staff to get a passenger service running these days?
How would the same apparatus or approach even help with food shortage emergencies when they cannot even deliver a long term project like this effectively?
Our state is under the yolk of something that is not us. Because otherwise, this would not happen. Even this is somewhat outrageous when you think about it. The project seems to have just petered out.
This situation is utterly absurd. It spdlls out one thing: management failure.
Thank you.
I live nearby and am not surprised.
For years, residents have campaigned for a branch line to Aylesbury, using existing tracks, but there’s no money, apparently.
The varsity and nearby HS2 lines have been appallingly managed since conception.
I know
And agreed
It beggars belief that our rulers seem to be taking a very casual attitude to the coming crisis. It has been decades now that climate breakdown on the present trajectory of rising emissions and extreme weather events will lead to breakdown and final collapse. The suicidal wars and genocide in the Middle East are a harbinger of further terror to be unleashed.
The governing class in this country are insulated by subsidised food and booze at work, and an expense system that lets them claim for groceries and utility bills. No crisis and no risk of rationing for them – and if constituents start turning up at surgeries angered and complaining, the shutters will come down for security reasons, further increasing their detachment from the rest of us.
Just like before, there is no need for anyone to go hungry, if we make the choice to distribute food more just than we do currently. Alas it suits many of us (all that are not entirely or largely vegetarian, better vegan) and the governing systems internationally to not do that.
So while I have no high expectations that we’ll make the right choices this time around, I suggest everyone watches their own plates for the next couple of years. Less meat and dairy products consumption means less food calories have to end up as animal fodder and can be consumed by humans instead. That is a straightforward and very simple connection but we all know that changing habits is hard. I won’t even talk about food waste or animal suffering…
And while we’re at it (which we aren’t and, I expect, won’t be) we can change land use from agri products for animal consumption back to naturally productive ecosystems; right after we’ve muddled through the potentially coming supply constraints.
This is where literally every single homo sapiens sapiens, that has degrees of freedom in food consumption to begin with, can decisively make their own choice for the better.
For me the planting season has just started in my 6 6×4 raised beds and a similar area next door.
I suppose with not much in the ground yet its easy to miss but it rained – a lot over the winter
Now it hasnt rained for nearly a month
I have about 2000L of stored rainwater in my garden and some more next door but it doesnt last very long once you need to do serious watering.
For farmers relying on rain to grow crops as most do in the UK its not looking good……….
Agreed
A hard rain’s gonna fall soon though. We just need to know our song well before we start singing.
Perhaps the impending chaos will go down in history as the Trump Great Depression and Famine ?
Why not indeed? The man’s stupidity and vanity spur him to stick his name on everything else.
My Query to Perplexity may be of interest, the response makes me wonder about our whole system…
Are there any signs that UK officialdom is seriously preparing for food shortages to become widespread in the near future?
Response
Yes, there are signs of heightened contingency planning, but not strong evidence that officialdom expects truly widespread, near-term food shortages. The clearest signal is that ministers and officials have been reported as drawing up worst-case scenarios for disruption to food supply chains, especially around the Iran conflict and CO2 shortages, while publicly saying shelves are not expected to go empty and that this is precautionary planning rather than a forecast of crisis.
The main signs are:
Government “reasonable worst-case scenario” planning for food disruption linked to geopolitical shocks and CO2 supply problems.
Broader official recognition of a “resilience gap” in the UK food system and increasing exposure to climate and geopolitical risks.
Independent but influential warnings, including the National Preparedness Commission’s call for stronger food resilience, stockpiling, and emergency planning.
What this does not yet show
It does not show a public shift to wartime-style rationing, emergency food distribution, or formal warnings that widespread shortages are imminent. In the reporting I found, retailers and ministers stress that supply chains are still functioning and that the present concern is about reduced variety, price pressure, and disruption risk rather than broad empty-shelf scenarios.
Rationing of Ww2 was of milk bread butter cheese veg meat. So the basic building blocks if you like of food all single ingredients. So my fear is that if we ration today we will be rationing UPF foods. So bread is chemicals, margarine is petroleum chemicals, milk is still milk but if vegan it’s chemicals again, cheese okay it mostly taste like dishwater but that’s still single ingredient. And meat is hormone fed. If all the worlds basic foods is coming under threat what’s left is UPF that has been engineered to be shelf stable, this is my greatest fear that single origin ingredient food that we had and grew in the uk will be no more and if it does exist it will be cost prohibitive to most low incomes. And food allergies especially to chemicals added to food are not talked about enough. Much of the population will become very sick from UPFs. And I don’t know why we don’t do summit about it now. All the fields around by me are growing grass. Not a single veg. Boggles the mind the shallow thinking of the muppets in charge. To quote dad’s army were dooomed.
Re climate, food crisis looming & sustainability:
From Labour’s get-go, several tidal schemes could’ve been green-lighted, not least the Swansea barrage,
The UK warehousing stock could’ve been on notice to utilise its roof space for solar PV or face eventual rate surcharges.
7 years ago, a detailed strategic study, Re-energising Wales: exactly for ‘climate resilience’ & energy diversity. It sits yet on the shelf.
The 2010 (to 2030) NW Shoreline Management Plan advocated 124km of coastal realignment. Since 2010, only 2km achieved. I know because I drove that: 160ha of saltmarsh, biodiverse habitat created, sequestering 9,000t of CO2 per annum.
From 2010 austerity, Councils sold off allotments. By 2015, 2% of these assets lost. First actions by Rayner: allowing 7 councils to dispose of allotment sites. Allotments’ waiting lists exceed 100k. Urban horticulture is more efficient, productive & sustainable than farming.
Only 38% of UK rail network is electrified, unlike Spain, France, Poland all above 60%) & Italy 73%. India has 98%. In 2022, UK rail electrification managed to add just 2.2km to the network !
Leadership is key but politicos must know stuff too. MPs without STEM backgrounds are gullible to lobbyists. So, they lack own ideas. Eg. Billions wasted on ‘Carbon, Capture & Storage’ (CCS) tech fiction.
Proper Government is laser focussed on society’s well-being (our ecologically degraded landscapes are also relevant), making bold investments proving its focus by the scale & nature.
We don’t need a dominant, cheapskate, myopic Treasury culture, or one chucking money at highly expensive military-industrial job creation, and hanging onto our £200 billion Trident nuclear capability.
We need: Communities that come together, talk and deliberate and push from the bottom up. Thus, why I think your work has importance, along with the informed contributors you trigger.
Thank you
This is all-too-believable as a near-term scenario.
In some ways, it’s a ‘foretaste’ (pun half intended?) of the wider, deeper systemic problem of our globalised food supply system and our national lack of preparedness and resilience against that and other aspects of the poly-crisis.
The People’s Emergency Briefing film is well worth watching (and trying to get as many friends, family, neighbours, community… and politicians to watch it). https://www.nebriefing.org/
Or the presentations at the fuller National Briefing last November in Westminster Central Hall are on YouTube.
Thank you