Record El Niño threatens Asia's food security, could raise global prices 15%

The Pacific is warming to levels not seen in recorded history, and the consequences are already visible in the shrinking reservoirs of Jakarta, the smoke-choked skies of Indonesia, and the anxious calculations of rice farmers across Thailand. Scientists tracking this year's El Niño say it will likely be the strongest since record-keeping began in 1950—a 69 percent probability, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The United Kingdom's national weather service calls it potentially "the strongest in living memory." What makes this cycle different from the natural warming patterns that occur every few years is its timing and intensity: it arrives as Southeast Asia is already reeling from an energy crisis triggered by the war in Iran, which has driven up fuel and fertilizer costs and strained government reserves meant to cushion such shocks.

The region sits at the epicenter of vulnerability. Wildfires are consuming forests and peatlands across Indonesia, sending toxic haze across borders. In Jakarta, the world's largest city by some measures with 42 million residents, the water level of a major reservoir is dropping steadily. One of eleven villages that had been submerged beneath that same reservoir has begun to emerge from the receding water—a visible marker of how far the drought has already progressed. A boatman named Hussen, who ferries people across the shrinking lake, expressed the human weight of displacement: he would have preferred to stay, he said, because there had been good ways to make a living where he lived. Indonesia's Research Center for Climate and Atmosphere warns that El Niño has only entered its "super phase," meaning the worst is still ahead, with the phenomenon forecast to peak in December.

The threat extends far beyond water supplies. Southeast Asia's fisheries, which provide essential protein to hundreds of millions of people, face mounting pressure as rainfall declines and temperatures rise. The Mekong River, which flows through six nations and already struggles under the weight of mining operations and hydropower dams, is particularly at risk. Zeb Hogan, who runs a research and conservation project called Wonders of the Mekong at the University of Nevada, Reno, described the compounding stress: "It's one punch after another. If the river doesn't catch a break, we will reach a point where it's no longer going to sustain people in the way that it always has." Communities along the Mekong depend on predictable water levels for both fishing and farming. Lower flows mean less food and less income for people with few alternatives.

The agricultural crisis will ripple across the globe because Southeast Asia dominates the world's supply of two staple crops. Rice exporters—India, Vietnam, and Thailand rank as the top three globally—face the prospect of delayed planting, reduced acreage, or switching to different crops entirely. North of Bangkok, a 55-year-old rice farmer named Boonmark Marksuuk is already spending most of his days pumping water into his fields because he no longer trusts the seasonal rains. Beyond the drought itself, he contends with fuel and fertilizer costs that have climbed because of the war. Indonesia and Malaysia together supply roughly 85 percent of the world's palm oil, an ingredient in everything from cookies and cosmetics to toothpaste and detergent. Malaysia's prime minister has ordered the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security to develop mitigation strategies, with the worst impacts expected in November. In Indonesia, the challenge is more acute: farmers rely on rain to dissolve fertilizers into soil without burning plants. If the rains fail, as Eddy Martono, chairman of the Indonesian Palm Oil Association, explained, farmers will stop fertilizing altogether, which will damage national production.

The human cost is staggering. The United Nations World Food Program estimates that El Niño could push at least 49 million more people into acute food insecurity by the end of 2027. The worst impacts will be felt in Central America and southern Africa, but significant effects are anticipated across eastern Africa and South and Southeast Asia. Goldman Sachs analysts estimate that global food commodity prices could rise more than 15 percent. Past El Niño events have cost trillions of dollars in economic losses, according to HSBC's Global Investment Research, and this one could exceed those figures. Paul Teng, with Singapore's ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, observed that El Niño is "only compounding all the other problems that we see"—a reference to the overlapping crises of energy scarcity, supply chain disruption, and climate stress that have already weakened the region's capacity to respond.

Asian governments have been drawing down their financial reserves to manage the ripple effects of the Iran war—higher energy costs, scarce fertilizer supplies. They have less capacity now to absorb the shock of an intensifying El Niño. Kareff Rafisura, chief of the Disaster Risk Reduction Division at the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, noted that agriculture sits "on the front line" of this crisis. She also underscored the global dimension: "Whatever happens here, the extent to which countries can protect production levels, will have global impacts." The outcome will determine whether millions of people remain below or just slightly above the poverty line. The question now is not whether El Niño will cause damage—it already is—but how much worse it will become before the cycle peaks in December and begins to ease.