Climate change ‘on course’ to make five-a-day unaffordable for many – report

Josie Clarke, Press Association Consumer Affairs Correspondent

Climate change is “on course” to make fresh fruit and vegetables unaffordable for many households over the next two decades, according to a report.

Fruit and vegetable prices could rise by 170% by 2050, with the climate crisis largely driving fresh produce inflation, research by the Autonomy Institute suggests.

It said the predictions would make already-faltering five-a-day targets even more unattainable for millions of people.

The report also suggests that “climate-flation” is to contribute 40% of total inflation across basic goods by 2035 and over 60% by 2050.

It adds that climate change will have gone from a “minor contributor to the dominant driver of shelf-price inflation on fresh produce inside the working lifetime of someone in their thirties today”.

Heatwaves are projected to add about 11% to the price of the UK’s top 20 fruit and vegetables by 2035 and about 68% by 2050 under a high emissions scenario, on top of normal inflation.

Imported tropical fruit such as melons, oranges, bananas, easy peelers and grapes will rise 12% to 14% by 2035 and 80% to 93% by 2050 on these climate grounds alone, the report concluded.

Compounded with estimated normal inflation, the total average shelf prices of the overall basket of fruit and vegetables “will reach upwards of 170% above today’s level by 2050”.

The institute said that the research only studied the effects of heatwaves on the cost of food in the UK and used a standard baseline for inflation, and did not factor in other climate-related impacts on food production such as flooding, soil erosion or water quality.

It also did not factor in geopolitical impacts on inflation.

Only about a third of UK adults currently meet the five-a-day target, while the figure for those aged 11 to 18 is closer to one in eight, while consumption falls steadily the lower the household income.

Autonomy Institute chief executive Will Stronge said: “We have been cautious in our assumptions, looking only at heatwaves, and only against a stable inflation backdrop.

“The conclusion is still stark: within 15 years, climate change will be the biggest single factor driving up the cost of fresh food.

“Politicians cannot afford to wait and see. The time to build food resilience into our industrial strategy is now, before the pressures become acute.”