What El Nino, IOD & Climate Tele-connections Have to Do with Tomato Prices in India
Akhila Vijayaraghavan takes a nuanced look at El Nino, drought and agricultural systems in India
It has not our escaped notice that the price of common Indian staples like tomatoes and onions are currently soaring. This jump in price of upto 400% making it more expensive than petrol, has even forced McDonald’s to stop offering tomatoes on its menus temporarily. The tomato index is a great way to track Indian agricultural supply chain issues as well as climate and weather patterns.
Climate teleconnections is the intricate system upon which the predictive science of forecasting is based on. These climatic teleconnections drive natural weather systems in seemingly unrelated geographical locations, often across thousands of kilometres. The El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a great example of a global climate teleconnection, as is the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) which drives the great Indian monsoon system amongst other things.
The El Nino or ENSO is a naturally recurring climate pattern which involves changes in the water temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. The periods range from about 3-7 years where the surface waters across a large area warm or cool by anywhere from 1C to 3C compared to normal. This pattern of warming and cooling is the ENSO cycle and it directly affects rainfall distribution in the tropics apart from weather influences in other parts of the world. ENSO has three phases - the positive or El Nino which produces warmer temperatures, the negative or La Nina which results in cooler temperatures, and the neutral-ENSO phase.
The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) has only been a recognised weather system for about twenty years. The IOD also has a positive and negative phase. Both ENSO and IOD have close connections and one can act as a trigger on the other making it much harder to predict the effect of IOD in weather patterns.
This year, the El Nino has returned with renewed vigour after a break of four years and it is telling upon our summer temperatures. In India, the El Nino affects our monsoons negatively and the La Nina, affects it positively. Looking at historic data, there is a clear correlation between El Nino events and the effect it has had on Indian agricultural production. In 2014, a 12% lower rainfall resulted in a 5% fall in grain production in 2015. In 2015, India had a strong El Nino effect and rainfall was again lowered by 14% although production remained flat. (Source - IMD, Ministry of Finance)
As our agricultural systems and therefore, economic systems are heavily reliant on good monsoons, the El Nino has the potential to affect us adversely. According to The Washington Post, a recent study published in the journal Science found that some of the most intense past El Nino events cost the global economy more than $4 trillion over the following years. The authors estimate that the 2023 El Nino event could hold back the global economy by $3 trillion over the next five years.
This year, the IOD is positive which results a higher than normal rainfall for India. This could partially offset the warm effect of El Nino which is why the IMD has predicted a normal monsoon for the country. India has also has two years of record production of grain which now stands at 331 MT. So the IMD predicts that even if monsoon rains were to reduce by 10% current inventory levels would play out well for 2023. However, the effects of the El Nino for 2024 is still too soon to say.
However we are still seeing the devastating effects of ENSO on our agricultural systems. Apart from untimely rainfall, there has been catastrophic flooding in North India in Himachal, Punjab, Haryana, and Delhi which has left impacts on food systems. There has been reports of apple trees being washed away by the floods resulting not only in the loss of productivity but also the loss of the trees themselves, some of them 250 years old. Certain farms have reported a loss of upto 2500kgs of apples this season. We are currently also facing the price increase of tomatoes and onions - both of which is due to shortages due to climate systems wreaking havoc on supply chains.
Due to the unseasonably high temperatures in February, fungal diseases in tomato plants were rampant in many tomato cultivation areas which also resulted in loss of crop, which is responsible for the shortage and high prices today. Apart from this flooding in major tomato producing states like Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka has been a key driver to the price surge, according to India’s National Institute of Biotic Stresses Management, a council dedicated to agricultural research. India is the second largest producer of tomatoes in the world and this severe price increase has led to market volatility as well as a spike in theft.
As the flooding keeps making the news, there is also a 17% deficiency of rainfall in the eastern and northeastern region according to IMD data which has gone largely unreported. This could act as predictive data to forecast wildfires and droughts. Because apart from predicting rainfall and monsoon variability, ENSO is also a good predictor of drought and wildfires both of which affect agricultural productivity.
It has been studied that the cool of La Nina phase of the ENSO has been historically responsible for drought conditions in Southern India due to the failure of the North-East Monsoon, made evident by the 2016-18 drought. Looking at data over the past six years (2015-21), the country lost has 33.9 million hectares of the cropped area due to floods and excess rains and 35 million hectares due to drought, which are likely to intensify as various studies predict. According to Ministry of Agriculture data, close to 67.79 million hectares or 40% of agricultural land in the country in unirrigated, making it severely vulnerable to the vagaries of climate change.
Earlier this year, a paper in Nature Connections strongly concluded that teleconnections directly influence the growth of vegetation, as as other factors like aridity, soil moisture levels, and temperature that creates the perfect storm for the eventual sparking of a wildfire. They identified “drought hotspots” across the globe where droughts tended to appear simultaneously or within a few months. Sea surface temperatures and precipitation patterns from this study implied major climate teleconnections created a synchronisation of droughts on separate continents. El Nino, again appeared to be the main driver of simultaneous droughts in South America, Asia, Africa, and Australia.
These landmark studies could help countries by forecasting and collaborating to deal with these natural disasters - especially as the areas prone to drought and the areas prone to wildfire threats overlap in several instances. While anthropogenic influences to the world’s climatic conditions cannot be discounted, it is also mindful to note how natural cycles in the short-term play a role in disaster management.
This year, the hottest February on record has gone on to pave the way for a sweltering summer in India with several heatwaves. Temperatures have reached record highs in several places with resulting fatalities. Early July saw some of the hottest recorded temperatures in the world. Although climate phenomena like ENSO and IOD affect global temperatures and conditions, local conditions also play a role in agrarian productivity. Chief among these is the availability of water and a management of available resources.
Although it is the backbone of the economy, Indian agriculture is not as productive when compared to agriculture in other countries. This is due to the lack of awareness on modern agricultural methods by small-hold farmers. This is bed-rocked in a severe lack of financial incentive; further embedded by a lack of top-down push towards technology combining AI, predictive modelling, hydroponics, digitalisation, soil restoration, and advanced agri-science. Indian agriculture has very many virtues, but it is not smart and therefore not prepared to reckon with an uncertain future reliant on global weather vagaries balanced on the backdrop of the climate crisis, as the yearly spike in tomato prices confirm.
The more we learn about the interconnectedness of geological systems, the more we realise that global natural systems act as a great net in which civilisation itself is cradled precariously. Climatic changes affect us whether we are battling drought, wildfires, or expecting a normal monsoon. It is far easier to accept the principle of reciprocity in science when the conclusions of research are favourable. But Nature does as Nature does; in this case, we are as much connected by survival as we are in that empirical truth that indeed all things come and go in waves, and are ultimately analogous.
**India witnessed the driest August in more than a century as the country received 36% less rainfall than normal in 2023, according to data compiled by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Thursday. The country has received 10% lower rainfall than normal from June 1 to August 31, the IMD data showed.
Akhila Vijayaraghavan is a trained molecular biologist and environmental consultant.
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