The world’s food supply is increasingly at the mercy of a weather phenomenon that has not yet reached its peak. This year’s El Niño is on track to be the strongest in at least 70 years, with cascading consequences for global food and agriculture markets.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization now puts the likelihood of it persisting through February 2027 at close to 100%.
"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," Cornell University food economist Christopher Barrett told CNN.
Barrett also noted that this year’s weather event is hitting at a particularly precarious moment for global supply chains already strained by geopolitical conflict and trade barriers.
Nowhere is the damage more acute than in India’s sugarcane fields, where the worst monsoon season in 11 years has left parched crops across key agricultural states and sent global sugar prices nearly 15% higher than a year ago, according to the UN Food & Agriculture Organization.
India, the world’s largest sugar consumer and second-largest producer, has taken the extraordinary step of opening its doors to imports while the sugar shortage is simultaneously undermining the country’s biofuels program, which relies on sugarcane-derived ethanol to power a 20% ethanol blend mandate at Indian gas stations, per The New York Times.
The disruption is spreading well beyond sugar.
In Peru, the world’s second-largest producer of blueberries, the blueberry industry body has cut its export forecast for the 2026/2027 season, projecting production will be 10% below last season’s volume despite having approximately 15% more hectares in production this year, notes the Fresh Fruit Portal.
CNN reports Indonesia, a major palm oil producer, is experiencing severe El Niño-related drought and record wildfires, threatening a commodity used in a vast range of food, cosmetic, and biofuel products globally.
According to The Wall Street Journal, corn prices are up roughly 33% from their late-June low, and Rabobank analysts warn that growing concerns about South American production could tighten global stocks further heading into 2027.
The compounding effects of El Niño, geopolitical conflict, and trade disruption are prompting warnings of a broad, slow-moving global food crisis. For American farmers and agribusinesses with exposure to global commodity markets — from soybean exporters watching China's purchase commitments to food manufacturers dependent on palm oil and sugar inputs — El Niño is no longer a distant weather event but a direct business risk.
