Professor Paul Behrens , British Academy Global Professor at the Oxford Martin School and the author of 'The Best of Times, The Worst of Times: Futures from the Frontiers of Climate Science', argues that failing to prepare for the risks El Niño poses to UK food systems will cost far more than taking action now.
An exceptionally strong El Niño is happening in the Pacific right now. US forecasters give a high chance that it will become stronger than any El Niño since 1950, and, by one estimate it would be the strongest in 1,000 years . This recurring warming shifts rainfall across the tropics, temporarily raises global average temperatures, and changes weather patterns around the world. For the UK, the government's science advisers expect the foods affected to keep reaching us, but warn that 'reduced global yields are expected to result in higher prices for consumers' .
In general, the UK doesn't run out of food, but we do pay more. Sometimes a lot more, and we cannot fully avoid this.
While the last El Niño, in 2023, had 'virtually no discernible impact on UK food prices' , this time is different in two main ways: firstly, this El Niño is happening at a time of already high energy prices and rising fertiliser costs due to wars and geopolitical tensions. Secondly, we have never seen such a strong event at the same time as such high baseline warming . This El Niño is happening on top of ever-increasing climatic changes that are altering farming systems in the UK and around the world. The last El Niño was far weaker than this one is expected to be, and it helped make 2024 the warmest year on record . The Met Office says 2027 is very likely to be warmer still. On Carbon Brief's central forecast , it could be nearly 0.2 °C warmer than 2024.
This is happening at a time when UK farming is struggling after this year's record-breaking summer, provisionally the UK's hottest on record , with England's driest July on record . The heat and lack of rain hampered the harvest . Autumn has been dry so far too: in England, October remains much drier than normal , and there are growing concerns that farmers may not be able to refill their reservoirs over the winter.
"This El Niño is happening at a time of already high energy prices and rising fertiliser costs due to wars and geopolitical tensions. We have also never seen such a strong event at the same time as such high baseline warming."
Yet, despite our recent domestic troubles, there are even more serious risks abroad. In a typical El Niño year, losses in some regions are partly offset by gains in others . But for the places hit, the changes can be very severe. The most exposed are regions such as southern Africa, where the rains are expected to fall short this season. Much of the region relies on maize from South Africa, whose harvest has fallen below normal in almost every strong El Niño since 1980. After the last one, Namibia declared a national drought emergency and authorised the culling of hundreds of wild animals , elephants among them, to feed people.
In the UK we have managed single global shocks before, for example in 2022, when the war in Ukraine drove up energy, fertiliser, and grain prices. Our food stayed available overall , but UK food inflation peaked at 19.1% in March 2023 . Industry forecasts for UK food price inflation next year are around 6% , covering all causes.
There is also the chance of multiple shocks coming together at once, which, combined with political responses such as export bans , could push inflation even higher. This is possible given the Russia-Ukraine war, now severely limiting Black Sea grain exports , the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and a fresh threat to Red Sea shipping , which between them are interrupting grain, energy and fertiliser shipments, on top of climatic changes.
Britain tends to assess exposure to each specific product by each specific shock, shifting supply chains as each one comes under stress, and we have few models for how shocks compound. Oxford colleagues have begun building them and find that if a war, an energy price spike, and export bans like those of 2022 struck in a globally poor year for farming, most countries could be hit at once .
"If a war, an energy price spike and export bans like those of 2022 struck in a globally poor year for farming, most countries could be hit at once."
What the government should do now
On 8 September, the government told the House of Lords there was 'no current evidence' that El Niño would lead to UK food security issues, and that it was still assessing. On supplies, from El Niño alone, that may well be right. But, as we have seen, the key thing is that this El Niño won't arrive alone. While a minister told MPs on 13 October that considering 'cascading climate and nature impacts on food security' will be 'a core part' of a taskforce launched in June to assess our resilience, an assessment isn't a plan, and we should be planning and acting now, before we are thrown into the turbulence to come.
Abroad, pay now for early action, such as drought-tolerant seeds, water and cash, while it is cheapest. The UK has made money available , southern Africa included, which is welcome. In early August, before that announcement, early-action activities planned for southern Africa were mostly unfunded .
On trade, keep markets open, most importantly for rice, and push for restraint on bringing in any export controls at the World Trade Organization and in G20 trade talks, while there is no strong sign of export bans .
"The National Audit Office has warned that the UK food sector's ability to withstand catastrophic events that cause severe disruption has not been tested. The UK has no national food stockpiles and instead relies on diverse sources of supply."
At home, plan for the rarer case of disrupted supplies, starting with our emergency law. Colleagues and I recently delivered a letter to Downing Street , signed by more than 150 academics, experts, and food and community leaders, asking for changes to the Civil Contingencies Act. The Act currently cites disruption to the food supply as a possible emergency, yet while energy networks and water companies have a duty to work with emergency planners , food suppliers do not.
The National Audit Office has warned that the food sector's ability 'to withstand catastrophic events that cause severe disruption has not been tested' . The UK has no national food stockpiles and relies on diverse sources of supply, the government told Parliament in April . Until May this year, Defra's food supply chain resilience team had only 6.5 full-time equivalent staff, since increased to 16.5 for an initial 12 months. Holding stock is expensive, but the audit office recommends weighing the costs and benefits of approaches used elsewhere, stockpiling included, such as Finland's government-owned grain reserves .
Whatever happens, we should be building broad and deep capacity within the civil service and government. The government thinks the private sector has "got this" when it comes to secure supply chains; its line is that the UK has 'a resilient food supply chain that is well equipped to deal with potential disruption'. But an anonymous letter from senior executives at major UK food producers, manufacturers, and retailers warns that 'resilience' has become 'a by-word for the tactical switching of ingredients and sourcing regions', and that their industry 'is only pushing for emergency interventions and resisting strategic public-private engagement that would address the fundamental and underlying issues'.
"Longer term we need more headroom. Eating more plants and less meat frees up land: if a bad year cuts yields, some of that land could be used to grow food for people instead."
What we can all do longer term
In September, colleagues and I argued in Nature Climate Change that when an outcome could be severe and irreversible, under-preparing costs far more than over-preparing. National security assessments plan for a reasonable worst case, while economic models tend to focus on central estimates, so policy makers can be given very different pictures of the severity of the same risk depending on who is asked. Governments already use reasonable-worst-case approaches to plan for pandemics. Food deserves the same, starting with 'no-regret' actions that pay off even if the worst never comes.
On that note, longer term we need more headroom. The government's own national security assessment says the UK 'cannot currently produce enough food to feed its population based on current diets'. Eating more plants and less meat frees up land: in 2022, colleagues and I found that a shift to a healthy, more plant-based diet across the EU and UK would almost save enough crops to make up for the lost production from Russia and Ukraine.
Eating this way in the UK alone would free UK farmland almost the size of Scotland . If a bad year cut our yields here at home, some of that land could be used to grow food for people instead (over 50% of UK cropland feeds animals ). This has a large number of other benefits to our health , the climate , nature and our wallet . If we do it right, it could also help farmers' incomes , with opportunities to diversify land use into creating woodlands, restoring peatland, and generating renewable energy.
We can see this El Niño coming, the geopolitical tensions continuing and the potential for price spikes months ahead, and most of the fixes are cheap compared with not having them.
