In lettuce price spike, a taste of things to come
Looking for deals at your local supermarket? Steer clear of the lettuce rack.
According to the US Department of Agriculture, $1.78 on April 21st, up from $1.23 in early January. While the shows that the rest of the produce aisle is also getting more pricey, leafy-green lovers can blame one clear cause: bad weather.
After years of drought, California 鈥� whose Salinas Valley is called 鈥溾�� 鈥� is facing the opposite problem. in January and February restricted the winter planting season for lettuce, celery, and spinach, meaning that fewer of those crops than usual are maturing. To make matters worse, a colder-than-usual winter out of Spain鈥檚 vegetable crop, leaving European consumers dependent on California鈥檚 scarce veggies.
It鈥檚 hard to definitively link this squeeze 鈥� or any one weather event 鈥� to climate change. And spikes like these aren鈥檛 new: 鈥�,鈥� reports the UN鈥檚 Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).聽聽
But episodes like today鈥檚 lettuce bubble could grow more common as weather in key farming regions gets less predictable, a problem that will demand solutions from both suppliers and consumers.
Charlie Iceland, aqueduct director with the World Resources Institute鈥檚 (WRI鈥檚) Water Program, tells 海角大神 that 鈥渙ne of the things climate-change scientists predict are more of the extremes of drought and flooding.鈥�
鈥淚n this case,鈥� he continues, 鈥渇looding is doing the damage to the crops, to the lettuce, but either one can do a lot of damage, and they're going to create supply-demand imbalances and price spikes ... and I think that'll happen more often.鈥�
His colleague Rich Waite, an associate with the WRI鈥檚 Food Program, doesn鈥檛 mince words about the scale of this challenge. In a phone interview, he asks, 鈥淗ow are we going to feed in a way that advances development but also reduces pressure on the environment, and does so under a changing climate, and under growing resource constraints? There's this whole menu of things that the world is going to need to do.鈥�
That could prove especially true for lettuce and other vegetables. The World Health Organization of this food group, but it鈥檚 not exactly poised to thrive as the weather gets less reliable.
鈥淚f you have enough water, it's easier to grow vegetables without rain than with rain,鈥� Frank Mangan, extension professor at the University of Massachusetts鈥揂mherst Stockbridge School of Agriculture, tells the Monitor. Rainfall doesn鈥檛 just make it harder to work in the fields; too much water can also 鈥渓ead to disease, leaching of nutrients, things like that,鈥� he explains.
Usually, California鈥檚 dry climate spares lettuce growers these headaches, and its massive dam and canal system keeps each head properly hydrated. The Golden State produces ; it and a few other US regions with the right mix of climatic, geologic, and economic factors of America鈥檚 greens.
When strange weather hits these areas, consumers far and wide feel the pain. But as this problem unfolds with lettuce, the food-supply chain is adapting. In Chicago, for instance, the fast-casual restaurant Just Salad has for lettuce and other produce it serves so it can preserve its prices against market swings, reports the Chicago Tribune.聽Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that a greenhouse chain based in New York that supplies supermarkets with lettuce, tomatoes, and basil is seeing an uptick in business as California鈥檚 supply looks less certain.
These solutions will need a drastic scale-up to fill the salad bowls of 3 billion more humans by mid-century. In 2014, US greenhouses sold 聽of vegetables, only about 4 percent of that year's . It鈥檚 also just one of what the WRI鈥檚 Waite and Iceland call a 鈥渕enu of solutions,鈥� which also features high-tech fixes, like new crop varieties, and more common-sense approaches, like curbing food waste.
On the demand side, another change that could buffer the price shock of severe weather 鈥� spreading out production of crops like lettuce 鈥� might not be painless. 鈥淚f you were to try to push the production of a certain crop outside of its usual place,鈥� Mr. Iceland explains, 鈥淚'm assuming that entails some kind of a markup in price, because it's a less efficient place, so the consumer would have to be willing to go along and pay a higher price.鈥�
Or find a cheaper alternative. Feeling the pinch of the current lettuce crisis, the Greater Chicago Food Depository maintained a balanced diet for its low-income clients while staying within budget. The food bank鈥檚 spokesman, Jim Conwell, told the Tribune that 鈥渒ale and cabbage have remained more affordable, so we're purchasing and distributing more of those items.鈥�
In coming years, consumers around the world and across the income scale will likely have to make more adjustments like these.
鈥淎 lot of the conversation around how to sustainably feed more people in a changing climate has to focus on the agriculture,鈥� says Waite, but 鈥渢he other half of the solution is about making consumption patterns more sustainable, too.鈥�
鈥淲e鈥檝e seen that it really is a combination of those supply-side and those demand-side measures that are gonna get us to a point where the world is fed in a sustainable way by mid-century.鈥�
