Restrictions on food exports are spilling over from rice and wheat to other essentials. This ranges from Tanzania's limits on shipping onions to its neighbors and Morocco's restrictions on tomatoes to ongoing bans of some kinds of rice in Asia.
It might not be obvious why the health of plants is a contributing factor to food shortages in developed countries. But there's a direct connection — when they're diseased, there's less food to go around, and food prices rise accordingly.
One-sixth of all agricultural production, according to the USDA, is traded internationally — which means that what happens in many of those highly climate-vulnerable countries will impact what Americans eat or drink. It’s already happening.
Climate change, widespread poverty and conflicts are now combining to create "endemic and widespread" risks to global food security - which means higher food prices may be the new normal, unless action is taken to curb the threats.
