Olive oil prices have doubled in the past two years as hot weather and drought have scorched olive groves across the Mediterranean. Heat waves and unusual rains in West Africa have pushed cocoa prices to record highs this year, forcing chocolate makers to raise prices. Traders are stockpiling coffee after a severe drought in Vietnam, the world’s second-largest producer, sent prices of the Robusta variety to a 45-year high. The most sought-after Arabica beans have also risen in price recently. Torrential rains in Italy triggered an outbreak of mold, one of a series of weather events that has pushed global wine production to its lowest level since 1961.
Around the world, regions known for their gastronomy are struggling to adapt. According to scientific research, the land suitable for growing coffee at cool, high altitudes will decrease in the coming decades.
Nishant Gurjer, a coffee producer in India, faced a double blow. First, last year’s unusually heavy rains split the outer husks of his coffee beans, spoiling the taste of his early crop. Then came an extreme heat wave in April that dried up the new coffee blossoms, and he said he would cut production by a quarter next year. “Things are getting tighter,” said Gurjer, whose family has grown coffee for more than 200 years. “Summers are hotter, monsoons are more humid,” he said.
Climate change is making heat waves more frequent and intense, scientists say.
Coffee traders in drought-stricken Vietnam are stockpiling beans in anticipation of even higher prices., said Debbie Wei Mullin, chief executive of Los Angeles-based Copper Cow Coffee, which sells coffee beans from Vietnam to retailers such as Whole Foods, Costco and Target. “This is the first year we’ve told Costco you can have eight trucks and that’s it,” Mullin said.
Challenges facing farmers in the “new normal” of climate change
Farmers around the world are trying to adapt to the new realities of climate change by building irrigation systems and planting new drought-resistant crops to combat drought. In Bordeaux, France, some winemakers are rethinking traditions such as thinning grape leaves and keeping vines shaded and cool to increase sun exposure. Warmer temperatures make wines taste better, so in recent years the region has approved the blending of new grapes, such as Arinarnoa, an acidic variety that balances Damask Merlot.
“Adaptations like this help, but sometimes they can cause other problems,” said Cornelis van Leeuwen, professor of viticulture at Bordeaux Sciences Agro. To combat drought, for example, farmers in Spain use irrigation, but this risks drying up low aquifers. Another solution is to plant less densely so that each vine has more soil to draw water from. But less grapes mean less grapes, which can hurt farmers’ incomes.
Other wine-growing regions are in a more difficult situation than Bordeaux. In March, van Leeuwen wrote in the academic journal Nature Reviews Earth & Environment that some warmer and drier wine-growing regions in southern Europe had reached tipping point with “cachetic vines, defoliated canopies and severe yield losses”.
This has inspired some winemakers to seek out more temperate climates. K Felix G Åhrberg has studied how climate change affects global production by working in wineries in New Zealand, France, South Africa and elsewhere. In 2017, he decided, as he called it, to “stop the game” and return to his native Sweden. Now he works with grapes grown in the southern part of the country, a few hours from Gothenburg.
“In Spain, France and Italy they are uprooting vineyards. It’s burning in Bordeaux, and it’s hailing in Italy,” said Åhrberg. The vineyard where he works as a winemaker, Kullabergs Vingård, is in the process of doubling its acreage to around 70 hectares. Over time, the expansion of wineries in northern countries such as Canada, Great Britain and Sweden is expected to partially offset the decline in production in countries such as Spain, although some wine characteristics may differ.
The classic Mediterranean product, the olive, is also slowly making its way north. Austrian research group Agro Rebels works with local farmers who have so far planted around 5,000 olive trees. Daniel Rössler, co-founder of the group, said that olives are not a common product for Austrian farmers, but the opportunity is attractive. Austria’s warmer climate is beginning to resemble that of its neighbors across the Alps.
However, it will take time for global consumers to benefit from the new supply of olive oil. Like coffee and cocoa, olive trees take years to mature, so production cannot start overnight. The olives must be processed in specialized olive mills, which Austria does not yet have.
At the same time, olive oil will be more expensive and less tasty. German consumer organization Stiftung Warentest tested 23 different olive oils in March and found that the average quality had dropped compared to previous studies. “It leaves traces of drought and heat in the Mediterranean countries. The highest quality products – extra virgin – are often bitter or spicy,” the organization said.