While fans, especially Americans, of Sriracha pepper sauce rush in search of full jars after the manufacturer's announcement about stock shortages due to reduced harvest due to extreme weather in Mexico, other chains also sway in the taste of wind, intense sun and violent rains scattered across the globe, symptoms of climate change.

The availability of agricultural products such as chocolate, wine, wheat and corn has been shaken by weak harvests, and the impact on prices may be just the beginning of a spiral of social problems, with small producers hurt or even businesses unviable by severe weather conditions, according to the British newspaper The Guardian.

In the case of red jalapeña pepper, the base of Sriracha, a sauce popular in the United States (USA), Huy Fong Foods, which produces 20 million bottles of the product annually, has had low stocks in recent years, a situation that has worsened with a spring crop break in Mexico, with a lot of drought.

In Brazilian lands, the hot climate and frost damaged coffee harvests between 2020 and 2021 and, with Brazil being the largest producer in the world, market prices rose 70%.

John Furlow, director of the International Institute for Climate Research and Society at Columbia Climate School, says coffee growers in places like Costa Rica and Jamaica cannot move to higher altitudes in response to warming temperatures. "Think of a mountain as a cone. As you go up, there's less area, so that's a risk."

Fans of good mustard also have reason to worry. Producers in France and Canada have been reporting smaller crops of the seeds used to make the sauce used in sandwiches and recipes around the world. In the last year, harvests have decreased by 50% and the impact has reached supermarket shelves, which have run out of dijon glasses to offer.

In the case of wheat, in addition to the war in Ukraine, a major exporter of cereal, the intense heat in the United States and India also puts pressure on the market. Levels of winter wheat crop abandonment in the U.S. – especially in the states of Texas and Oklahoma – are the highest since 2002. Meanwhile, in Montana, floods threaten grain crops, the Guardian reports.

Climate change could also affect corn production, with forecasts of a 24 percent decline by 2030, according to NASA, the U.S. space agency. Apple growers already notice a deterioration also in the quality of their fruits.

Last year, France's wine industry had its lowest harvest since 1957, with an estimated loss of $2 billion in sales. A vineyard in the Champagne region that typically produces up to 50,000 bottles a year produced nothing in 2021 due to higher temperatures and heavy rains.

A study with researchers from Spain, France and the USA showed that if the planet's temperatures rise by 2°C, viticulture-epting regions could shrink by up to 56%. Four degrees of warming could mean that 85% of these areas would no longer be able to produce good wines.

"Climate change and its erratic patterns will change the world's wine map. Regions will disappear and others will emerge," Linda Johnson-Bell, founder of the Wine and Climate Change Institute, tells the British newspaper.

Source: Um só Planeta