How El Niño will drive up the cost of foods you love

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US consumers are likely to face steeper prices for their morning latte, thanks to the near-record strong super El Niño still strengthening in the Pacific Ocean. El Niño is expected to combine with preexisting supply chain pressures around the world to increase prices on tropical products such as coffee, chocolate and palm oil.

But the developing countries where those products are grown are likely to face the largest impacts, said Christopher Barrett, who teaches food and agricultural economics at Cornell University. This is because developing countries have less capacity to adapt to shortages of key agricultural products like fertilizer, poor harvests of maize and other staple crops, and less resilience to bounce back from extreme weather and climate events.

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This El Niño, which is forecast to peak this fall and winter, comes at an already challenging time for food prices, given supply chain pressures from geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and Black Sea .

“We’re not in normal times,” Barrett said. This makes the ongoing El Niño somewhat of a food supply wild card. Still, many experts expect El Niño to cause localized food supply crises, particularly in eastern and southern Africa, while global impacts remain more limited.

El Niño is a periodic climate cycle that features hotter-than-normal sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean. The effects of El Niño reverberate around the globe, bringing drought to some regions, such as Australia, and flooding to others, including eastern Africa, along with an increased prevalence of heat extremes worldwide.

Coffee and palm oil-producing countries are particularly exposed to El Niño’s impacts because of their geography.

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Brazil and Vietnam are major coffee-growing regions, and both can see significant shifts in precipitation during an El Niño, as can other growing areas in Central America. In fact, El Niño is already driving flooding in Southeast Asia and drought in Central America, and it’s still at least three to four months away from its forecast peak.

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Palm oil is mainly grown in parts of Asia and is used as an ingredient in a wide variety of foods and other products — including cosmetics and biofuels. Indonesia, a major palm oil producer, is experiencing an El Niño-related drought, as the region’s typically heavy precipitation has shifted elsewhere. Indonesia is also seeing significant wildfire outbreaks , with this fire season currently on track to rival the worst on record there, which occurred during a previous super El Niño in 2015 to 2016. These wildfires are hurting palm oil production, too.

Because it’s used in so many different products, a shortage of palm oil could lead to higher prices in areas well beyond the growing regions, including the US.

Food security experts do not anticipate food shortages within the US from El Niño, given the country’s ample agricultural production. But the cost of these particular food products may increase during the rest of 2026 and into 2027 and beyond.

Maximo Torero, chief economist at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, said global food prices are already on a steady climb because of the combination of geopolitical tensions, trade barriers and now El Niño. The big question though is how much El Niño will further amplify food prices, with a large range of projected increases depending on its severity and on countries’ policy responses.

For example, the oil supply crisis tied to the Iran conflict is increasing the costs of gasoline and diesel fuel and limiting fertilizer supplies. Meanwhile, trade barriers put in place by the US and other nations are affecting the price of goods from many countries.

According to Barrett, trade can be thought of as a “release valve” when facing the effects of El Niño. Trade barriers could constrain countries’ abilities to absorb El Niño-related extreme weather events and lead to some food price increases, particularly at the national or regional level.

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For example, Torero said El Niño has already resulted in cuts to food production forecasts. A drier-than-average monsoon season has reduced India’s rice harvest, and Australia’s important wheat crop is also projected to come in lower than usual for the year as conditions turn drier and hotter than average there. If India decides to limit rice exports due to concerns about domestic food insecurity, that will in turn increase global rice prices.

“My view right now is that we are moving slowly towards a food crisis that will be hitting us at the end of this year, beginning of next year. How deep it is will depend a lot on the additional factor of El Niño,” Torero said.

That analysis, he said, assumes that the conflicts over the Strait of Hormuz and the war between Russia and Ukraine will continue.

Nelson Villoria, an agricultural economist at Kansas State University, said there can be a time lag between an El Niño and its effects on food prices. “Tropical commodities such as palm oil, coconut oil, coffee and fishmeal, show the largest increases,” he said. With vegetable oils and coffee, prices can stay elevated for up to a year after an El Niño.

Villoria said that globally, cereal crops tend not to be sensitive to El Niño-related effects, because much of the industrialized world doesn’t see major extreme weather impacts on those crops. However, it’s a different story in parts of Africa.

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“Maize in Southern and Eastern Africa are highly sensitive, and their prices may spike considerably, up to ~20%, with dire consequences for the people in those regions,” he said.

Eastern Africa can be susceptible to flooding during an El Niño, drowning cereal crops there, while southern Africa is drought-prone. These areas are relatively disconnected from world markets, making it harder to simply increase food imports to cover shortages.

“Food prices almost always go up a bit with El Niño events, and they go up more the more serious the El Niño and the worse the timing,” said Barrett of Cornell University. This one is likely to be the most intense El Niño on record, “crazy big,” and is hitting the global economy at a particularly bad time, he said.

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由于太平洋地区持续增强的超强厄尔尼诺现象强度接近历史最高水平，美国消费者可能面临更高的咖啡价格。预计厄尔尼诺现象将与全球供应链原有的压力叠加，推高咖啡、巧克力和棕榈油等热带产品的价格。

康奈尔大学食品与农业经济学教授克里斯托弗·巴雷特表示，这些产品的主要产地——发展中国家——可能面临最大的冲击。这是因为发展中国家应对化肥等关键农产品短缺、玉米和其他主粮作物歉收的能力较弱，而且从极端天气和气候事件中恢复的能力也较弱。

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预计今年秋冬季将达到顶峰的厄尔尼诺现象，正值中东和黑海地缘政治紧张局势给供应链带来压力，食品价格面临严峻挑战之际。

巴雷特说：“我们现在所处的并非寻常时期。” 这使得持续的厄尔尼诺现象对粮食供应构成了一定程度的不确定性。不过，许多专家预计厄尔尼诺现象将导致局部地区的粮食供应危机，尤其是在东非和南部非洲，而其对全球的影响则较为有限。

厄尔尼诺现象是一种周期性的气候循环，其特征是热带太平洋海面温度高于正常水平。厄尔尼诺现象的影响波及全球，给澳大利亚等一些地区带来干旱，给东非等另一些地区带来洪涝灾害，同时还导致全球范围内极端高温天气的发生频率增加。

由于地理位置的原因，咖啡和棕榈油生产国特别容易受到厄尔尼诺现象的影响。

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巴西和越南是主要的咖啡产区，厄尔尼诺现象会导致这两个国家以及中美洲其他咖啡产区的降水量发生显著变化。事实上，厄尔尼诺现象已经导致东南亚洪灾和中美洲干旱，而距离其预测的峰值还有至少三到四个月的时间。

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棕榈油主要产于亚洲部分地区，广泛用于各种食品和其他产品，包括化妆品和生物燃料。印尼是棕榈油生产大国，目前正遭受厄尔尼诺现象引发的干旱，该地区往常的丰沛降水已转移到其他地区。印尼还面临着严重的野火灾害，本季火灾形势预计将与2015年至2016年超级厄尔尼诺现象期间印尼历史上最严重的火灾季不相上下。这些野火也对棕榈油的生产造成了影响。

由于棕榈油被广泛用于各种产品，因此棕榈油短缺可能会导致种植区以外的地区（包括美国）价格上涨。

鉴于美国农业生产实力雄厚，粮食安全专家预计厄尔尼诺现象不会导致美国出现粮食短缺。但这些特定食品的价格可能会在2026年剩余时间以及2027年及以后上涨。

联合国粮食及农业组织首席经济学家马克西莫·托雷罗表示，由于地缘政治紧张局势、贸易壁垒以及厄尔尼诺现象的叠加影响，全球食品价格已经持续上涨。然而，最大的问题是厄尔尼诺现象将如何进一步推高食品价格，预计涨幅将取决于其强度以及各国的政策应对措施。

例如，与伊朗冲突相关的石油供应危机推高了汽油和柴油的价格，并限制了化肥的供应。与此同时，美国和其他国家设置的贸易壁垒也影响了许多国家商品的价格。

巴雷特认为，贸易可以被视为应对厄尔尼诺现象影响的“泄压阀”。贸易壁垒可能会限制各国应对厄尔尼诺相关极端天气事件的能力，并导致部分食品价格上涨，尤其是在国家或地区层面。

Tauseel Mustafa/法新社/盖蒂图片社

例如，托雷罗表示，厄尔尼诺现象已经导致粮食产量预测下调。印度季风季节干旱程度高于往年，导致水稻产量下降；澳大利亚重要的粮食作物小麦预计也将低于往年产量，因为当地气候变得比往年更加干燥炎热。如果印度出于对国内粮食安全的担忧而决定限制大米出口，这将反过来推高全球大米价格。

托雷罗说：“我现在的看法是，我们正缓慢地走向一场粮食危机，这场危机将在今年年底或明年年初席卷而来。危机的严重程度很大程度上取决于厄尔尼诺现象这一额外因素。”

他说，该分析的前提是霍尔木兹海峡冲突和俄罗斯与乌克兰之间的战争将会继续下去。

堪萨斯州立大学农业经济学家纳尔逊·维洛里亚表示，厄尔尼诺现象与其对食品价格的影响之间可能存在时间滞后。“棕榈油、椰子油、咖啡和鱼粉等热带商品的价格涨幅最大，”他说道。植物油和咖啡的价格在厄尔尼诺现象过后可能会持续高位长达一年。

维洛里亚表示，在全球范围内，谷物作物通常不太容易受到厄尔尼诺现象的影响，因为大部分工业化国家很少遭受极端天气对这些作物的严重影响。然而，非洲部分地区的情况则截然不同。

Martin Bertrand/法新社/Hans Lucas/Getty Images

他说：“南部和东部非洲的玉米价格非常敏感，可能会大幅上涨，涨幅可达20%左右，这将给这些地区的人民带来严重后果。”

东非在厄尔尼诺现象期间容易发生洪水，导致谷物作物被淹，而南部非洲则易受干旱影响。这些地区与世界市场联系相对较少，因此难以简单地通过增加粮食进口来弥补短缺。

康奈尔大学的巴雷特表示：“厄尔尼诺现象几乎总是会导致食品价格上涨，而且厄尔尼诺现象越严重、时机越糟糕，食品价格上涨的幅度就越大。” 他说，这次的厄尔尼诺现象很可能是有记录以来最强烈的，规模“异常庞大”，而且正值全球经济遭受重创之际。