The systems in place and business-as-usual are killing us and other life on our planet.
Extreme weather events such as floods and heat waves, along with their impact on agriculture, are emerging as major threats to global food supply chains as climate change accelerates.
This increases the risk of social unrest if climate breakdown disrupts key agricultural regions, potentially paving the way for total societal collapse.
Current government policies suggest a potential temperature rise of 4°C above pre-industrial levels, which would devastate the world’s key agricultural regions.
Production
The frequency of heatwaves and flooding is already disrupting the supply of staples like wheat, rice, and soybeans. These disruptions have prompted experts to warn that the resulting food shortages could lead to widespread civil unrest.
A study by the European Central Bank and Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in conjunction with the European Central Bank, projects that food inflation will rise by up to 3.2 percentage points per year in the coming decade due to higher temperatures.
Wheat yields are particularly vulnerable, with recent spring temperatures above 27.8°C dramatically reducing harvests in key regions such as the US and China.
In the UK, the ripple effects are already upon us. In 2024, England experienced its second-worst harvest on record, with wet conditions slashing yields across key crops.
Farmers are bracing for losses of up to £600 million. An Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) analysis reveals wheat production dropped by 21 per cent, while winter barley and oilseed rape harvests were down by 26 per cent and 32 per cent, respectively.
Extremes
Record rains that hit in September have exacerbated the situation, delaying planting for the winter harvest and cutting into future productivity.
A report from ECIU found that climate change was responsible for a third of the food price increases seen between 2021 and 2023, adding around £605 to the average household’s food bill.
With roughly half of the UK’s food supply reliant on imports, the nation is especially vulnerable to crop failures and climate-driven disruptions abroad—meaning these price increases are likely to soar as climate impacts intensify.
The systems in place and business-as-usual are killing us and other life on our planet.
Tom Lancaster, a land, food, and farming analyst at ECIU responded to harvest data from DEFRA: “It is clear that climate change is the biggest threat to UK food security.
"And these impacts are only going to get worse until we reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to net zero, in order to stop the warming that is driving these extremes.”
Financial
The quickest way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is for Insurers to cease underwriting the climate criminals.
The insurance industry contributes to the problem. They underwrite fossil fuel companies - and thereby support the latter's role in exacerbating the risk of global famine.
The Soil Association has strongly criticized the complacency and scientific ignorance displayed by such insurance schemes.
“The majority of state-run CI [crop insurance] schemes are environmentally damaging and financially irresponsible programmes. They have negative impacts on biodiversity, and soil health and drive up agrichemical usage and land-use change.
"They have led to riskier farming practices, promoted more intensive practices and expanded the cultivation of monoculture crops. Compounding the problem is the fact that it is the public, rather than farmers, who bear the majority of the financial burden of CI."
Declines
The statement added: "Perversely, since the state covers the majority of the CI premiums and administrative costs, farmers are likely to financially benefit from yield-loss or mismanagement. Consequently, they are less inclined to adopt agroecological practices that might better protect them from risk.”
The use of neonicotinoid pesticides - up 500 per cent in 5 years - releases nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 300 times stronger than CO2, and also means our pollinating insects are in danger of terminal decline.
Using 1,500 samples from 63 sites, a German study, published seven years ago, indicated that the biomass of flying insects had declined by three-quarters in the previous 25 years.
And a 2021 study published by the National University of Comahue in Argentina found that the number of bee species declined steeply worldwide after the 1990s, shrinking by a quarter in 2006–2015 compared to before 1990.
An article in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Science warned: “By the 2050s, [some] scenarios predict declines in all ecoregions ranging from 51 to 97 per cent.
Erosion
"The precipitous decline of this generalist species [of bees] is a bellwether for loss across many taxa sensitive to environmental changes around the globe.”
The breakdown of soil health is further accelerating the decline of the biomass. Up to 41 per cent of our worm population has been lost in the last 30 years and numbers continue to fall, further reducing the chance of propagation.
Worms are vital for ecosystem services, mediating physical, chemical, and biological interactions, and serve as reliable indicators of overall soil health.
The world grows 95 per cent of its food in the uppermost layer of soil, making topsoil one of the most important components of our food system.
But due to contemporary farming practices, nearly half of the most productive soil has disappeared in the world in the last 150 years, threatening crop yields and contributing to nutrient pollution, dead zones and erosion. It takes 500 years to replace 2cms…that’s a long time to go hungry!
Scarcity
While financial support for farmers affected by floods has been promised, delays and eligibility issues have left many waiting for relief.
With experts warning that these disruptions will become more common, long-term strategies for food resilience and adaptation are essential if the UK hopes to secure its food supply in an increasingly unstable world. It is late in the day: we now need adaptation as well as mitigation measures if we are merely to survive.
There is also a growing concern about the potential collapse of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) and the loss of the Gulf Stream, which could result in the UK experiencing a climate similar to that of Scandinavia.
If it coincided with the failure of global breadbaskets, this would have disastrous implications for the UK's food security and its ability to grow its own food.
Currently, half the world's population already faces water scarcity, and this number will rise as climate change worsens. The Global Commission on the Economics of Water, reports that by 2030, demand for fresh water will exceed supply by 40 per cent.
Bolster
According to the commission, more than half of global food production could fail within 25 years due to a rapidly worsening water crisis - agriculture consumes about 70 per cent of freshwater - unless urgent action is taken to conserve water and protect ecosystems.
Only 0.5 per cent of Earth’s water is usable freshwater, and terrestrial water storage has decreased by one centimetre annually over the last two decades. Rising sea levels are also expected to increase groundwater salinisation, further diminishing freshwater resources in coastal areas.
Droughts in the Amazon, devastating floods across Europe and Asia, and the rapid melting of glaciers, which will exacerbate both flooding and downstream droughts (Himalayan and Andean glaciers supply fresh water to the South American and subcontinent lowlands), are all signs of intensifying extreme weather.
Human overuse of water is also amplifying the crisis, such as draining carbon-rich peatlands and wetlands, which then in turn release large amounts of carbon dioxide, further fuelling climate change.
The scale of the threat posed by climate change to food security is clear. Without action to reverse destructive agricultural practices, mitigate the effects of extreme weather and bolster food supply chains, the UK faces the twin dangers of escalating food prices and potential unrest.
Disruptions
And yet, there seems to be a worrying complacency on the part of the British government.
As The Ferret revealed through a freedom of Information request: “In many cases, the UK Government’s own North Sea regulator only knows which firm has brokered insurance for a project, not the company that is actually covering it.
"Activists said that 'campaigners, and regulators, should not have to guess' who is insuring projects in the North Sea. They claimed that companies should be 'compelled' to provide full insurance details ‘on request’."
A 2023 study from the University of York found that over 40 per cent of food experts, including 60 per cent of farmers, believe civil unrest in the UK could occur within the next decade if shortages of staples like wheat, bread, and pasta become widespread .
The likelihood increases to 80 per cent over the next 50 years, with experts pointing to extreme weather as the most probable cause of disruptions.
United
The link between food insecurity and unrest is not theoretical: it played a role in the 2011 uprising the Arab Spring. Rising food prices, driven in part by extreme weather and crop failures, helped fuel protests in Egypt and Tunisia.
With the UK's food supply chains increasingly exposed to climate risks, the potential for similar unrest resulting from food shortages cannot be ruled out.
As extreme weather becomes evermore frequent, government policies need to ensure that both farmers and consumers are protected from the worst impacts of climate change and ecological breakdown.
We have all the facts, we know about the risks and every passing day matters. The systems in place and business-as-usual are killing us and other life on our planet.
While there’s still a narrow window of time, let’s make a united, planet-centred effort to restore nature and give ourselves and our children a real chance of avoiding starvation.
This Author
Tom Hardy FRSA has over 40 years of experience in education, serving as literary editor for the International Journal of Art and Design Education, a columnist for the Times Educational Supplement, and author/editor of several academic works on educational practice. He has worked as an education consultant for the Prince's Teaching Institute and subject lead for the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency reporting to the Department for Education. Since 2018, he has been part of Extinction Rebellion's media and messaging team.