Climate change-driven extreme weather events are severely disrupting global food production, triggering record-breaking price surges and heightening health risks for vulnerable peoples in the countries, including Bangladesh, revealed an international study on Monday.
The research was led by Barcelona Supercomputing Centre with support from institutions, including the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, ICREA鈥擟atalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies, European Consortium of Innovative Universities, European Central Bank, University of Aberdeen, and The Food Foundation.
The findings, coming days ahead of the UN Food Systems Summit Stocktake slated for July 27, have been published in the United Kingdom-based 鈥業OP Publishing鈥� journal.
The journal is a publication of the Institute of Physics, a charity working to advance scientific knowledge.聽
Analysing 16 extreme weather events across 18 countries between 2022 and 2024, the researchers found that heatwaves, droughts and floods pushed food prices well beyond pre-2020 records.
In the United Kingdom, potato prices surged 22 per cent in early 2024 due to excessive winter rainfall鈥攁n event made 10 times more likely by climate change.
In Ethiopia, a catastrophic drought鈥攖he Horn of Africa鈥檚 worst in 40 years鈥攍ed to a 40聽 per cent rise in food prices in March 2023.
India faced over 80 per cent increase in potato and onion prices after a heatwave in May 2024, while Japan, South Korea and Mexico also recorded major food price spikes due to extreme heat or drought.
In Pakistan, catastrophic monsoon flooding in 2022 resulted in a 50 per cent rise in rural food prices.
The World Bank published a report in April this year that mentions that Bangladesh has been placed in the 鈥榬ed鈥� category for food inflation risk. The country has remained in this category for nearly two years.
Basically, countries with inflation rates between 5 per cent and 30 per cent are classified as red by the World Bank.
Bangladesh has been experiencing high inflation for almost three years, with food inflation particularly elevated over the past year. For 10 months in a row, food inflation remained above 10 per cent. It dropped below 10 per cent in February, but since March 2024, food inflation has not returned to single digit.
Low- and fixed-income peoples have not faced such prolonged hardship before. In July 2024, food inflation rose to 14.10 per cent, the highest in the past 13 years.
According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, the average food inflation from April 2024 to March 2025 was 10.44 per cent.
The ripple effect of rising prices is stark. The Food Foundation reports that healthy foods are already twice as expensive per calorie as less nutritious options. As a result, many low-income families are forced to reduce fresh produce consumption, increasing their exposure to diet-related diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
