The impact of climate change – whether that’s floods, droughts, extreme heat or cold – is ravaging crops and threatening our food supply. Here are 15 food crops that are facing shortages and uncertain futures due to the global crisis.

Last year as wars were waged, food prices skyrocketed and a new post-pandemic reality set in, up to 783 million people faced hunger around the world – that’s about one in ten people globally. To be sure, many governments, non-profits and private companies are taking action to help tackle food insecurity, but despite all that, around 660 million people may still face hunger in 2030.

A large reason for that is climate change and climate-related extreme weather events. Even as we come up with financial initiatives, food banks and other social solutions, in the long run, curtailing the climate crisis is the only way to drastically reduce this number. Over the last few years, crop failures and food shortages have been much more frequent and visible all around the world due to an increase in floods, droughts, heatwaves, hurricanes, and storms- all of which disrupt our global agricultural systems and farmers’ ability to grow crops consistently. As a result of the climate crisis, we are facing a future with less arable land (where crops can grow), less water available for agriculture, and rising energy prices (needed for farms to operate), not to mention the damage being done to pollinators like bees, who are responsible for the pollination of one-third to one-half of all global foods crops, depending on which estimates you believe.

This has led to an entire innovation industry of future food founders looking to find new ways to produce food that is land-light and climate-resilient to arrest these shortages- with milestones in sectors like cultivated meat and precision-fermented dairy announced almost weekly. Some intrepid teams are even hoping to make fruit grown in labs.

Despite these advancements, the reality is that we are decades, if not centuries, away from a future where agriculture does not rely on land crops. If we don’t take collective steps to mitigate climate change, our dinner plates could look very, very different in the future. While this is by no means an exhaustive list, here are 15 of your favorite foods that are affected by the climate crisis.

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