- Research by Christian Aid finds that a significant portion of the fruit, vegetables, pulses and meat products used by households in the UK, Italy and Germany originate from countries vulnerable to the climate crisis - 22%, 23%, and 15%, respectively.
- Bananas, grapes, avocados, coffee and tea are among staples of UK shopping baskets in the firing line as climate impacts bite.
- Experts and charities, including Green Alliance and the Fairtrade Foundation, warned action is needed. Christian Aid is calling on rich countries, including the UK, to finally deliver on their pledge to send $100billion climate finance to developing countries and close the "adaption gap" to ensure farmers can adapt to the changing climate.
Bananas, grapes, avocados, coffee and tea are among staples of UK shopping baskets in the firing line as climate impacts bite. That’s the finding in an analysis by Christian Aid, who mapped key food imports and found a shopping basket of goods likely to be hit as the planet warms.
Researchers focused on households in the United Kingdom, Italy and Germany and found that a significant portion of the fruit, vegetables, pulses and meat products—specifically, 22%, 23%, and 15%, respectively—originate from countries with high climate change vulnerability and low climate readiness levels. The authors warn that further warming would mean more harvest-destroying extreme weather events, leaving consumers facing more price rises and empty shelves.
It comes weeks after the UK Government’s five-year adaptation plan warned that climate change threatened the UK’s national security and food supplies. Last month National Farmers Union President, Minette Batters, highlighted that climate change was causing havoc with food supplies. She said: “I have never known such volatility in the global food system. Climate change is wreaking havoc on food production across the world, with farmers in Southern Europe literally fighting fires while farmers here are despairing as they now must spend thousands of pounds to dry sodden grain.”
This was echoed by Alain-Richard Donwahi, a former Ivory Coast defence minister who led last year’s UN Cop15 summit on desertification. He said the impacts of the climate crisis combined with water scarcity and poor farming practices threaten global agriculture.
The findings build on 2022 analysis by UK government advisors the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) which warned “risks are rising for international supply chains” and urged the ministers to raise spending on adaptation and “increase capacity building through its overseas programmes to improve global capacity for climate resilience, including supply chains.”
A typical UK food shop would see 22% of fruit, vegetables, pulses and meat products coming from high-risk climate change countries, found Christian Aid. More broadly, 8 out of 25 UK’s top import trade partners are countries with high climate vulnerability and low climate readiness. These include Brazil, South Africa, India, Vietnam, Peru, Colombia, Cote d'Ivoire and Kenya - where the UK imports the majority of its tea from.
These goods reflect a 5-day diet typical for a 4-person family from the three countries and underscore the risks consumers face in a world where extreme weather is hitting hard. The report comes after the UN warned the world may tip over the 1.5C warming limit agreed by governments in the coming years, which experts reckon will lead to a spate of more serious extreme weather events.
UK supplies of tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, peppers and citrus fruits ground to a halt earlier in 2023 as drought hit parts of Spain and Morocco. Rising temperatures are also hitting olive oil supplies, with Lebanon’s famed olive groves deemed at growing risk.
Patrick Watt, Christian Aid’s Chief Executive, said: “The UK may be an island but in an ever more interconnected world we cannot escape the damage caused by
climate change. Our record on carbon emissions has helped cause the climate crisis. Farmers in some of the world’s poorest countries are now struggling to cope with droughts, storms and rising temperatures.
"The climate crisis is increasingly disrupting the supply chains of the food in British shopping baskets and risks adding to the cost-of-living crisis. The case for action has never been clearer. The UK Government must work with others to provide the financial support needed to help vulnerable communities adapt to a fast-changing climate."
Simon Lewis, Professor of Global Change Science, University College London, said: “For 10,000 years farmers experienced a broadly stable climate. Indeed, this stability is one key factor in the rise of complex civilisations. Now the game is radically different, because, on average, next years’ climate is not like the past. This spells, at a minimum, food supply disruption and elevated food prices. We live in a globally connected world, including the supply of food that keeps us all alive. Disruption of food supplies is a real and growing risk in the UK. Everything we do to cut our emissions in the UK, including not licencing new oil and gas projects, reduces the level of the coming chaos. The UK paying to help poorer countries adapt to climate change also increases our security too. It is a good investment in our future. Climate impacts may well push already strained societies into failed states. A world of many more failed states is a much more dangerous one for the UK. Rising food prices, already causing real hardship in the UK and globally is just the beginning, unless we slash carbon emissions and invest in adapting to the impacts of our rapidly changing climate.”
Gareth Redmond-King, Head of International Programme at ECIU, said: “Last year, the UK imported 37m tonnes of food worth £58bn from nearly 200 countries. Around half of that comes from climate impact hotspots and so is vulnerable to increasing extremes of heat, cold, drought and flooding. Those extremes are devastating for people’s lives and livelihoods, with nearly half the world’s population living in areas of climate risk. Many development professionals would consider this reason enough for the UK, as the sixth biggest economy on the planet, to offer help and support for poorer nations to adapt to climate impacts and recover from climate disaster. However, it is also increasingly in our own interests; along with rapid cuts to emissions to slow the rate of heating, and avoid even worse impacts, it is important to safeguard supplies of staple foods that we simply can’t grow at home.”
Alexander Carnwath, Fairtrade Foundation’s Head of Public Affairs said: “This is an important and timely report from Christian Aid, drawing the connection between the threat that climate change poses to the livelihoods of farmers, and the food we eat in the UK. Smallholder farmers in low-income countries suffer the most extreme consequences of a crisis that they have done least to cause, and climate change also threatens the availability and affordability of food we regard as staples such as cocoa, tea and bananas.
“We cannot and must not ignore the needs of the people who produce our food. Fairtrade Foundation believes that smallholder farmers overseas have a critical role in tackling the climate crisis and often understand best how to adapt to the changes it is bringing. It has never been more urgent that UK businesses prioritise sustainability, ethics and fair pay for farmers in their supply chains, all of which can support climate action where it is most needed. And richer, higher polluting nations must honour their commitments to provide climate finance to poorer countries, with a particular focus on the needs of smallholder farmers.”
Clare Shakya, Climate Change Group Director - International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), said: “To people living in richer countries that have so far been spared the worst of the impacts of climate change, the climate crisis can feel very far away. This analysis shows that monsoons in India, flooding in South Africa and drought in Kenya will ultimately mean less food in the bellies of people around the world, wherever they live. Whilst those in rich countries will bemoan the loss of fresh fruit and vegetables, it is the small farmers producing that food who will be struggling most. Climate justice demands that those countries which have done the most to cause this crisis should be the ones paying for poorer countries to adapt to a changed climate and to recover from disaster. Common sense suggests it is also in their self-interest.”
Luca Bergamaschi, co-Director of the Italian climate think tank ECCO, said: “The Italian way of life could be fundamentally disrupted by climate impacts. 23% of fruit, vegetables and protein products consumed every day by Italians are now sourced from high-risk climate change countries. Prices could skyrocket and supplies interrupted, impacting the most vulnerable citizens across societies. Preserving traditional Italian culture requires scaling up efforts globally to achieve zero emissions and adapt to a new climate. Italian climate diplomacy for new partnerships underpinned by new finance rules and investment towards middle and low income countries in Africa, Asia and Central and South America is critical over the next few years. The Italian G7 in 2024 is a key venue to build climate-proofed food supply chains and safer world for all”.
Dustin Benton, policy director, Green Alliance, said: “Climate disruption is driving up our food bills, and the sad truth is that emissions from UK farms are no lower than they were in 2008, despite the UK’s impressive progress in clean energy. The government needs to urgently support farmers to restore peat and grow trees on low quality farmland, which will cut carbon emissions, store water and manage rising temperatures. As the National Food Strategy said, supermarkets need to replace processed meat with plant-based proteins in ready meals and prepared foods. These are cheaper, often healthier, and much more resilient to climate disruption.”
Notes to editors
Case study:
Yadira Lemus, a coffee farmer born from generations of coffee producers in Honduras, is part of a women's group working with the support of Christian Aid partners to implement climate adaptation projects and improve the income of women.
“As a coffee producer, it is more and more difficult to produce,” Yadira Lemus explains. “And yes, that is obviously related to climate change, because before we would plant coffee and it produced almost by itself.”
She adds: “With regard to climate change, we are seeing an increase in temperature. It is harder to predict the weather. Before we could say which is winter or summer, and when we can plant. Not anymore. We cannot say that because it changes from one year to the other, and it is not easy to predict. Who was going to predict that we were going to have the storms and hurricanes we had last year. Now you see there is a lack of rain. We are more vulnerable to these types of changes.
“Each time we have to search for higher places to produce. People are now deforesting higher zones, which generally are recharge zones for springs, which in the end are the water sources we take the supply from. They are also contaminating them because they are not implementing good agricultural practices.”
For more information or interview requests contact Joe Ware on jware@christian-aid.org
