Britain has suffered its worst harvest in over 40 years. Farmers say that the country now faces food shortages within months.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/08/21/britain-faces-food-shortages-within-months-warn-farmers/

Jem Bendell - The current El Nino event is progressing to...
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The current El Nino event is progressing to be the strongest in the modern observational record, exceeding the previous extreme in 2015–16.

We know from the previous ones what is likely, locally. The rainy season in Bali will start late, with the temperatures remaining high until the new year, less overall rain, despite momentary downpours. Tourists and expats will be happy with sunny days and dry evenings, switching on the aircon more often. But the general public won't be happy, as fresh food prices will spike. The process is as follows:

Strong El Niño + background global heating → Indonesian rainfall suppression → extended dryness → depleted soil moisture → irrigation demand → stressed vegetation → increased pest/fire vulnerability → lower food yields and poorer appearance → higher prices and lower total farm income → slight increase in poverty → slight increase in crime → increase in illogical and unhelpful explanations → social unease and reactionary politics.

We will also see more wildfires, as is already being experienced in the rest of Indonesia the past few months.

There are many people in Bali who are being told this is coming, who got rich from tourism, and won't have their tourism businesses badly affected (unless unlucky from a wildfire). Will they do anything to help farmers and poorer workers prepare and adapt? Will they seize this near term experience of the inevitable climatic difficulties in years to come, as a moment for public learning, dialogue and adaptation? Sadly most will continue to mine Bali's culture and environment for more cash. But not all. Can you tell me what's positively being done?

In my case, I'm sponsoring Indonesian kids in-school and after school education on caring for the environment and adapting to disruption. We will also discuss how best to prepare at Bekandze Farm, (while we still operate it).

The worst harvest on record. Farmers questioning whether it's worth planting next year. And even Jeremy Clarkson says the sums aren't adding up.

The harvest crisis unfolding across Britain is becoming impossible to ignore.

After months of drought and extreme weather, farmers are reporting some of the poorest cereal, oilseed and potato crops in decades, with industry estimates suggesting this year's harvest could be the smallest since records began.

Among those sounding the alarm is Jeremy Clarkson, who says he can spend 15 to 20 hours a day harvesting and still struggle to make the numbers work.

But beyond the Clarkson headlines lies a much bigger story.

Farmers across England are warning about collapsing yields, poor-quality grain, rising costs and growing concerns over food security. Some are even questioning whether planting certain crops this autumn makes financial sense.

As Ireland copes with its own weather challenges, the UK experience offers a stark reminder of how quickly drought can transform a harvest and reshape thinking about farming, water security and food production.

Could Ireland face similar problems if extreme weather becomes more common?

And for tillage farmers, how has this year's harvest compared with your expectations back in the spring?

https://www.independent.ie/farming/uk-farmers-face-worst-harvest-on-record/a/159625904.html

Price of olive oil expected to rise again as European crops feel the heat | Food & drink industry | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/aug/04/price-olive-oil-expected-rise-again-european-crops-heat-drought-wildfires

The European Union has cut harvest predictions on a whole menu of crops with expectations for sunflowers, essential for cooking oils, down by 7%. Meanwhile, grain maize is down 6% on the previous forecast and expectations for potatoes and soya beans have been trimmed by 3%.

However, some countries have been less badly hit than others with Romania, for example, seeing more rainfall and Italy’s wheat crop proving resilient.

The ASAJA agricultural trade body said direct damage from fire had hit orchards, vineyards, agricultural land and greenhouses – affecting citrus fruits, avocados, almonds, vineyards, vegetables and olive groves – while water stress and extreme temperatures had hit production of tomatoes and maize.

“While local production losses may reduce export volumes for some products,” a spokesperson said, the main concern was “higher production costs” rather than restrictions on international trade.

direct damage from fire had hit orchards, vineyards, agricultural land and greenhouses – affecting citrus fruits, avocados, almonds, vineyards, vegetables and olive groves – while water stress and extreme temperatures had hit production of tomatoes and maize.

“While local production losses may reduce export volumes for some products,” a spokesperson said, the main concern was “higher production costs” rather than restrictions on international trade.

Olive oil producers said they expected another surge in prices this year as growers struggled with a combination of extreme heat, drought and, in some cases, fires.

marsification in progress





"Just stay inside"

Y'all!
Our farm is outside.
The crops are outside.
The food grows in the soil in a field. Outside.
It's acres upon acres of open fields.
Not just on our farm, but on every farm in Michigan.
We appreciate the sentiment, but we cannot just 'stay inside'.
And neither can our fellow farmers, ranchers, orchardists, and other food-growing colleagues.
In Michigan, we are in the middle of our PEAK season.
Across all of Michigan, there are hundreds of millions of dollars of crops growing right now. Outside.
That's our livelihoods. Our life's work. The whole enchilada.

I'm sorry, but we're going to be outside.
I'm sorry that we have to be. We didn't ask for this.
We're taking as many precautions as we can.
And I'm sorry if seeing our team working outside makes you uncomfortable.
Our nation has an unfortunate history of hiding how our food is grown and the people who grow it. Our farm has prided itself on being transparent with our customers. And we speak for all farmers when we tell you that we will continue to show up.
Right now, there are tens of thousands of agricultural workers in the state of Michigan who are combatting incredibly challenging conditions to show up to grow your food. Please support your local farmers. Don't tell them to wait inside. That's not how this works.

The more this week has progressed, the less sure we are that people know where their food comes from.

Obviously we WANT to stay inside, but then the food would rot in the field. The market shelves would be empty. Our community would lack access to safe, organic, local food.

The cruel irony is, in the midst of a parasite-infested-lettuce outbreak, our work on a local level is more important than ever. And at the same time, it is more hazardous than ever.

Our region was #1 in the world for worst air quality this week. That's the wrong competition to be in first place.

We have limited outdoor activity to only the most essential tasks. We have masks available for all staff. We have rearranged our schedules and our to-do lists.

But when you come into our Market, you are going to find tables and shelves absolutely overflowing with abundance. And that is because of the work we're doing outside. Everyday. For you.

Today, like everyday, we are incredibly grateful for our team. Everyone has stepped up to tackle this week with a level of gumption and can-do spirit that is rare these days. Those of us who are unable to safely work in these conditions are at home or inside. Those of us who are able to carry on, are showing up and stepping up.

And deep down we know, that all of the things we are putting off for now, the so-called 'non-essentials', are piling on to our to-do list after the skies clear. Whenever that is. And the sheer amount of catching up that looms is almost more intimidating than the apocalyptic skies we are working under right now.

On behalf of all Michigan farmers, thank you for your support. We're doing the best we can with the hand we've been dealt. If you need to find us, we'll be out here growing your food.

"Just stay inside" Y'all! Our... - Bear Creek Organic Farm
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HEAT WAVES PASSING CROP TOLERANCE TEMPERATURES

US, Europe and China crop yields are crucial to world food security.

2026 Europe heat reached 48.4 °C (119.1 °F), Casteltermini Italy

2026 US heat reached 46°C (11°F), Miles City Montana.

China 2026 heat reached 48.9°C, Turpan Basin Xinjiang
These are confirmed weather station temperatures.




Peter Carter - HEAT WAVES PASSING CROP TOLERANCE...
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‘Mega-consumers’ of food and energy cost environment $5.7tn a year, study finds | Environment | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jun/18/mega-consumers-food-energy-damage-cost-environment

Environmental damages of the top ten percent consumers exceed global climate and biodiversity funding gaps | Communications Sustainability
https://www.nature.com/articles/s44458-026-00079-x

The environmental damage bill racked up by the highest-consuming 10% of the world’s population has reached up to $5.7tn a year – larger than the economy of every country except the US and China, a study has found.

Mega-consumers in this group are concentrated in the global north, accounting for more than half the population of the US and 40-45% of people in the EU.

The damage tally, which one researcher described as “bonkers”, also exceeds global funding gaps for tackling the climate and biodiversity crises, highlighting how economic priorities remain skewed towards running down the Earth’s life-support systems.

The most destructive forms of consumption were linked to two main areas: food – particularly red meat, a primary driver of deforestation – and energy, including flights and heating and cooling homes, which typically rely on burning of fossil fuels, such as gas, oil and coal.

The $5.7tn figure, published in a paper by researchers at University of Oxford and University of Leiden, was calculated by using estimates of the monetary impacts of climate disruption, biodiversity loss, nutrient pollution and freshwater use.

Phytoplankton decline hints trouble for north Atlantic food webs - Oceanographic
https://oceanographicmagazine.com/news/phytoplankton-decline-hints-trouble-for-north-atlantic-food-webs/

It has linked the declines primarily to rising sea surface temperatures and changes in mixed layer depth – physical properties that control how nutrients and light are distributed in the upper ocean. As surface waters warm, the ocean stratifies into more distinct layers that are less likely to mix vertically, cutting off the supply of nutrients from depth that phytoplankton depend on to grow.

“While the ocean may appear to be one giant body of water, it is often divided into layers based on temperature,” said Dr Tilstone. “As the ocean warms, these layers become stronger and less likely to vertically mix – a process known as thermal stratification. This matters because the mixing of ocean waters helps transport nutrients from the depths to the surface, where phytoplankton can use them to grow. When that supply is reduced, microalgae productivity can decline.”

TADEAS:

R Hallam
https://www.facebook.com/share/1Dv9ebRvP4/

Okay, let's be honest - let's guess how many supposedly upright anti racist Guardian readers read Prof Bill McGuire's description of UK life in the summer of 2052 - 40C heat, water and food shortages, economic depression - and think "Oh, doesn't sound so bad - at least we won't be starving to death like all those billions of brown and black people in the global south."

Okay, let's not be honest. I take it all back. Sorry.

And obviously it would be beyond impolite to talk about 2070.

In case you missed the biggest news that was lost to the circus that is our government, the USGS has released data showing that America's underground aquifer storing water is officially drying up.

Spanning approximately 174,000 square miles across eight states from South Dakota to Texas, the Ogallala Aquifer (High Plains Aquifer) is the lifeblood of American agriculture, providing roughly 30% of all groundwater used for U.S. irrigation.

However, the aquifer faces an existential crisis as massive agricultural extraction severely outpaces natural replenishment from rainfall. In some heavily farmed regions like the Texas High Plains, water levels have plunged by up to 80 meters (262 feet), leaving parts of the reservoir entirely depleted and threatening the long-term viability of the region's farming communities.

The consequences of this groundwater collapse extend far beyond localized dry wells.

The Ogallala sustains a massive $35+ billion agricultural economy, and as the water table drops, farmers are hit with skyrocketing extraction costs and dwindling crop yields.

This critical situation is not isolated; California’s Central Valley Aquifer, another vital agricultural engine, is suffering from similar severe, long-term depletion. Without aggressive water management and a shift toward sustainable farming practices, the depletion of these non-renewable resources risks destabilizing the nation's food supply and transforming once-fertile plains back into arid dust bowls.

source: USGS

Soil4Climate | Time to build soil
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The USDA’s Beltsville Agricultural Research Center has been the go-to resource for American beekeepers for over a century. When 1.6 million bee colonies collapsed between June 2024 and March 2025, scientists there worked quickly to find out why. Six months later, they had an answer it was a viruses spread by pesticide-resistant mites.

The Trump administration announced it was closing the lab. Their reasoning is the facility is “underutilized and redundant.” Bees pollinate roughly 80% of U.S. crops fruits, nuts, vegetables, cotton. The research happening at Beltsville isn’t “underutilized and redundant.” It’s what stands between a bad season and a food supply crisis. And the administration just shut it down right after it proved exactly why it exists.

Members of Maryland’s congressional delegation say the closure may be illegal without congressional approval. Farm groups are pushing back. But the administration is moving forward anyway.

This isn’t about budget efficiency. It’s about dismantling the federal science infrastructure that protects American agriculture one “redundant” lab at a time just like the Trump administration claimed about the forest service!

The USDA’s Beltsville... - Alt National Park Service
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France just completed the world's largest agrivoltaic trial — installing solar panel canopies above 2,400 hectares of Provence vineyards, cereal fields, and vegetable plots, generating 500 megawatts of clean electricity from the same land producing full agricultural output.

The Sun'Agri program installs tilting solar panels on 5-meter-tall structures above crops, with panel angles controlled by sensors responding to crop water stress and solar irradiance.

Panels tilt to provide shade on hot days, reducing crop water needs by 30 percent and heat stress damage by 64 percent during heatwaves while generating electricity from diffuse light above the canopy. Crop yields in pilot vineyards increased 27 percent in drought years.

France loses 18,000 hectares of agricultural land to conventional ground-mounted solar annually.

Agrivoltaics eliminate this conflict entirely — 2,400 dual-use hectares replace lost food production while generating clean power.

Source: French National Institute for Agriculture INRAE, Sun'Agri France, French Ministry of Agriculture, 2025.

MURDOCH OWNS OUR GOVERNMENTS | Bad news for the solar sceptics-
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1BYTtJi4FB/

TADEAS:

R Hallam
https://www.facebook.com/share/1Au28JyCiB/

Four points on the "landmark" UK report on the elite's mass death project.

1. If it is a "landmark" report which points to the destruction of the British economy, its way of life, and the very existence of the country at 4C, why does it get two small lines in the middle of the news section of the world's main "liberal" newspaper that sells the idea that facts are "sacred"? The point being the liberal elites exist to smooth the journey to mass death being prepared for us by the business elites.

2. It's not the mean, stupid. What kills is the outlier. What we want to know is not that food production will go down by x% on average - we want to know that every 20 years an outlier probability is there will be destroyed crops two years running, leading to mass starvation of British people, from which they will not recover by the time the next outlier hits.

3. The unit of analysis of the "UK" is also beyond stupid. What will happen in the UK does not depend upon what happens in the UK but in the whole world. When outliers happen in other areas - war, famine, social breakdown, the world economy will collapse and UK living standards will collapse. Meaning poor people will starve and revolutions will happen.

4. The "climate" is not an event. So stopping pretending it is. It is not a matter of "if we get to 4C". It is a matter of if we get to 2C, feedbacks will send our kids to 3C and their kids to extinction at 4/5 and 6C. It's a ball rolling ever faster down the hill, not a bus stop.

Rainforests pushed to breaking point by new demands for resources, report says | Deforestation | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/may/20/rainforests-pushed-to-breaking-point-by-new-demands-for-resources-report-says

Fresh demands for critical minerals, biofuels and pulp – used in fast fashion, processed food and packaging – are compounding existing pressures from cattle ranching, monocrops, oil and logging, the analysis finds.

Mining, in particular, has a far greater environmental footprint than previously thought owing to secondary impacts, such as water pollution and the construction of roads, settlements and other infrastructure development. Between 10% and one-third of the world’s forests are already affected and this proportion is expected to increase.

The authors say this highlights an urgent need to replace and reduce the use of products from forest regions, rather than simply adding new forms of consumption, as is currently the case.

The report tracks the commodity trends that are threatening forests in the Amazon, the Congo basin and south-east Asia, and weakening their capacity to regulate temperature, store carbon, recycle water and provide a home for nature.

Cattle ranching, agriculture and gold mining remain by far the biggest threats, finds the study, which was produced by the Dutch research organisation Profundo and commissioned by Rainforest Foundation Norway. All three are forecast to continue expanding.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/05/09/iran-farms-thailand-food/

A Thai rice farmer has decided that the rational response to the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran is to leave 19 hectares of land empty. The Washington Post reports that Saithong Jamjai, 53, spent weeks calculating whether to plant again in central Thailand and reached the same answer each time: fuel, fertiliser, plastics and other inputs would cost at least $33,000, while the rice she expects to sell in August would bring in only $22,000. Her conclusion was blunt: “A confirmed loss”. So she is letting the land bake under the husks from last season.

The mechanism carrying the war into Asian rice fields is urea, the nitrogen fertiliser that modern high-yield farming depends on. Iran’s destruction of gas infrastructure in the Gulf, combined with U.S. and Iranian efforts to choke the Strait of Hormuz, has blocked supplies of fuel and gas-linked fertiliser products from leaving the Middle East. According to Pranshi Goyal, senior analyst at CRU Group, 30 per cent of global urea supply has effectively been “wiped out”. Urea spot prices are up 40 per cent since February; weekly production in Iran has fallen from 182,000 to 63,000 metric tons, while Qatar and Bahrain have dropped to zero in the figures cited. China has restricted fertiliser exports to protect its own farmers, and Russia is seeing demand rise in a way that could strengthen its economy and aid its war in Ukraine.

The Food and Agriculture Organization is warning that the shock is spreading through the global food system by calendar, not by geography alone. Speaking in Rome, FAO director general Dongyu Qu called the war “a disruption at the core of the global agrifood system”. FAO chief economist Maximo Torero said the worst effects are currently in Asia, where Thailand, the Philippines, Bangladesh and Australia are entering key sowing periods, but the crisis is “moving east to west and south to north”. Farmers are already skipping planting, reducing acreage, or cutting fertiliser use, which means lower yields later this year.

The next pressure point is June, when India and Brazil, two of the world’s biggest agricultural producers, are expected to ramp up urea orders. If ships carrying urea are still not moving by then, Torero warns of “significant yield loss” across many countries, higher commodity prices, renewed inflation, and a hit to economic growth “very close to what happened in covid-19”. A likely super El Niño this year could add extreme heat and drought to the fertiliser shock, making the same planting decisions even riskier.

Thailand’s official assurances are already colliding with shortages on the ground. The Commerce Ministry said in April that the country had 343,000 tons of urea, enough for the upcoming planting season. But the Post found fertiliser shops across Ayutthaya and Suphan Buri provinces out of urea for weeks. One wholesaler sent a truck to a marketplace used by large dealers and got nothing after four days. Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow says Thailand still has sufficient farming supplies, while also acknowledging that the country is competing against richer nations and has “not faced such a crisis before”. A Russian supply attempt is likely to fail because shipping disruptions mean the urea would take at least two months to arrive, too late for the current planting window.

Thai farmers are being squeezed from both sides. Their costs are rising because fertiliser and fuel are scarce, while their expected income is falling because the Middle East, one of their major export markets, has effectively shut. The region accounted for 17 per cent of Thailand’s rice exports in 2025, with Iraq the largest single destination. Since the war began, rice shipments to the Gulf have stopped. Malaysia and the Philippines have absorbed some of the excess supply, but not enough, leaving a glut that keeps rice prices low just as input costs spike.

The human consequences are already visible: farmers taking credit from local loan sharks, planting only part of their land, growing vegetables and fish for subsistence, considering day labour, and reporting anxiety, debt and depression. Pramote Charoensilp, president of the Thai Farmers and Agriculturists Association, says calls from villages now carry the same themes: debt, depression, desperation. His advice is painfully thin because the options are thin: “I ask them to try to keep going. Just to keep going”.

Even a quick reopening of the Strait of Hormuz would not immediately solve the problem. Goyal says cargo would still take one to two months to reach destinations and markets would need time to stabilise; the longer Middle Eastern production plants stay shut, the longer they will take to restart. “This problem builds in a nonlinear fashion”, she said. For farmers whose planting window is measured in days and weeks, a supply chain that recovers in months has already failed them.

Fertiliser shortages will have ‘dramatic’ effect on global food prices, warns farming boss | Supply chain crisis | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/may/06/fertiliser-shortages-iran-war-global-food-prices-farming

Fertiliser shortages caused by the Iran war have driven up costs for UK farmers by up to 70% and will have a “dramatic” impact on food prices globally next year, according to one of Britain’s most powerful property and farming companies.

Mark Preston, executive trustee of the 349-year-old Grosvenor Group, controlled by the Duke of Westminster, said fertiliser “was already quite expensive” before the 50% to 70% surge in prices since the start of the Iran war in late February.

The effective closure of the strait of Hormuz – which Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Wednesday could soon reopen – has throttled global supplies of fertiliser, crucial to growing food crops.

Preston said that, although UK crops were unlikely to be affected this year as most fertiliser had already been used, the knock-on effect could arrive next year. “Farmers are not buying that fertiliser, they’re sitting on their hands and hoping things will improve, which they probably won’t,” he said.

'Food insecurity is no longer just about low-income countries': Environmental economist explains how climate change is pushing agricultural systems to the brink | Live Science https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/climate-change/food-insecurity-is-no-longer-just-about-low-income-countries-environmental-economist-explains-how-climate-change-is-pushing-agricultural-systems-to-the-brink