Climate change impacts tomato, onion and potato production

Mumbai: Extreme heatwaves and erratic rainfall have severely impacted tomato, onion and potato (TOP) production over the past five years—pushing up prices of these kitchen staples and driving food inflation to alarming levels.

Reserve Bank of India data shows rainfall changes raise vegetable inflation by 1.24 percentage points, while temperature changes increase it by 1.30 points, according to an analysis by Climate Trends, a research consultancy that's driving sharper conversations on climate change.

The report underscores the urgent need for climate-resilient farming practices, stronger supply chains, weather-informed advisories, and social safety nets to protect both farmers and consumers from climate-driven food price shocks.

“Climate change is intensifying extreme weather events, disrupting food systems, and threatening price stability—especially in India’s vegetable markets. Short-duration, perishable crops like TOP are highly sensitive to sudden weather shocks, exhibit sharp price volatility and are major drivers of food and headline inflation. Extreme weather disrupts supply, damages crops in the field and storage, and worsens post-harvest losses, causing sharp price spikes in TOP vegetables. Their concentrated production in a few states make their prices highly volatile,” the report said.

India’s Consumer Price Index (CPI-C) has a high food and beverage weight (45.9 per cent), making it highly sensitive to food supply shocks. TOP with a combined weight of 36.5 per cent in the CPI- vegetables basket, 4.8 per cent in the food and beverages basket, and 2.2 per cent in the overall CPI basket, are the major sources of supply shocks in food as they are highly sensitive to weather shocks. Irrespective of such a low weight in the CPI-C, they are a significant contributor to the volatility of CPI-C inflation as the range of movement of CPI-C distribution is around 3.5

percentage points higher on account of TOP.

Onions, tomatoes, and potatoes—staples in most households—are especially vulnerable to

extreme weather, despite self-sufficient production levels. Weather shocks disrupt the supply-demand balance, reduce storage, and damage both standing and stored crops due to high moisture, increasing the risk of fungal infections. These vegetables face significant post- harvest losses during storage and transport, worsened by rain and temperature shifts. Their perishable nature and concentrated production in a few states make their prices highly volatile.

“Climate change has made India’s weather patterns erratic, leading to an exponential rise in the frequency and intensity of disasters. Spells of heatwaves are more intense and prolonged, while rainfall patterns are erratic marked by extremely heavy rainfall in shorter duration and longer dry spells. Along with land temperatures, ocean temperatures have been rising exponentially due to global warming. This rise has increased the moisture-holding capacity of air, resulting in extremely heavy rainfall events,”said Mahesh Palawat, Vice President, Meteorology and Climate Change, Skymet Weather.

According to him, agriculture is the primary victim of the rising extreme weather events.

“While heavy downpour results in landslides, mudslide, soil erosion and flattening of crops, rising temperature impacts soil moisture, shrivelled grains, flower drop

and heat stress. These effects potentially impact nutritional quality of food products and can reduce crop yield, threatening food security by increasing prices for household staples and the livelihoods of farmers,” Palawat added.

Tomatoes – 2023 rains cut Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka production by up to 13 per cent, pushing Delhi mandi prices from Rs 18/kg in June to Rs 67/kg in July.

Onions – Unseasonal rain and hailstorms in Maharashtra caused a 28.5 per cent production drop in 2023.

Potatoes – Frost and rainfall shocks in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal cut production by 7 per cent in 2023-24, keeping prices high throughout 2024.