The Heat Is On: How Climate Change Is Cooking Our Food System

The climate crisis has been a long-time coming, but its effects on our food system are now starkly apparent. A recent report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) paints a dire picture: extreme heat is no longer an anomaly, but a new norm for many parts of the world.

Brazil’s agricultural yields have plummeted due to prolonged periods of scorching temperatures. Soy and corn crops, two of the country’s mainstay commodities, have been hit particularly hard in southeastern states like São Paulo. Peanuts, potatoes, sugarcane, and arabica coffee have also suffered widespread declines. Similar patterns are emerging in countries around the world.

The report highlights several case studies that demonstrate the devastating impact of extreme heat on food production. In Chile, warming seas led to massive algae blooms that killed off an estimated 100,000 metric tons of farmed salmon and trout in 2016. A record-breaking heat wave in the US’s Pacific Northwest in 2021 decimated entire raspberry and blackberry harvests, while Christmas tree farms saw 70 percent timber volume declines. India suffered wheat losses of up to 34 percent after a record heat wave in 2022.

Extreme heat is also affecting livestock. In Kyrgyzstan’s Fergana mountain range, where spring temperatures typically remain below freezing, temperatures rose 50 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the seasonal average last year, contributing to locust outbreaks and dramatic declines in cereal harvests.

The World Health Organization estimates that human-caused warming has already led to an unprecedented rate of increase. The past 11 years have been the warmest on record. As Martial Bernoux, senior natural resources officer at the FAO’s Office of Climate Change, Biodiversity, and Environment, notes, “We’re not moving at a speed that is good enough.” With a high-emissions trajectory, many parts of the world will soon experience temperatures that are simply too hot for humans to work outside.

The Human Cost

Extreme heat exposure has become an occupational crisis for much of the world’s agricultural workforce. A 2024 report by the International Labour Organization found that over 70 percent of the global workforce – some 2.4 billion people – is at high risk due to extreme temperatures. This underscores the urgent need for action.

António Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations, has been vocal about prioritizing four key areas: caring for the most vulnerable; stepping up protections for workers exposed to excessive heat; boosting resilience using data and science; and quickly and equitably phasing out fossil fuels. “Heat is estimated to kill almost half a million people a year,” he noted in 2024, “about 30 times more than tropical cyclones.”

The Report: A Breakthrough in Perspective

The joint FAO-WMO report offers a sharp diagnosis of the problem – one that underscores the interconnectedness of climate change and food systems. As Naia Ormaza Zulueta, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of British Columbia, notes, “The prescription is where the system hasn’t caught up.” The report highlights the need for a more nuanced understanding of heat exposure, taking into account hourly and nighttime wet-bulb temperatures – finer-grained metrics that capture the severity of heat exposure for outdoor workers.

What This Means for Food Systems

As we face an increasingly hot world, our food systems will be forced to adapt in ways both subtle and profound. The report’s findings should serve as a wake-up call: climate change is no longer just a distant threat; it’s a present-day reality that demands immediate attention. Our agricultural workforce needs protection from extreme heat, but so too do our crops and livestock.

The clock is ticking. With each passing year, the stakes grow higher. We can no longer afford to ignore the impact of climate change on our food systems. The heat is on – and it’s up to us to take action.

Human-caused warming has already reached a point where some parts of the world will soon experience temperatures that are simply too hot for humans to work outside. The World Health Organization estimates that by the end of the century, much of South Asia, tropical sub-Saharan Africa, and parts of Central and South America could face as many as 250 days a year that are too hot to work outside.

This is not just a moral imperative; it’s an economic one. As our food systems falter under the weight of extreme heat, we risk destabilizing entire economies – not to mention causing irreparable harm to human lives and livelihoods.

The time for action is now. We must prioritize the four areas identified by Guterres: caring for the most vulnerable; stepping up protections for workers exposed to excessive heat; boosting resilience using data and science; and quickly and equitably phasing out fossil fuels. This will not be easy – but it’s a necessity.

Climate change is not just an environmental issue; it’s a human one. The people who grow, harvest, and raise the world’s food are on the front lines of this crisis – and they deserve our protection and support.

The heat is on – but so too is our collective will to act. It’s time to rise to the challenge.