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Cropped 12 August 2026: El Niño hunger | ‘Diverging’ deforestation trends | Uganda’s food crisis

12.08.26
By:
Orla Dwyer, Giuliana Viglione

This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s fortnightly Cropped email newsletter.

We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight.

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Article Contents

Key developments

Food insecurity risks

EXTREMES: The strengthening El Niño could leave almost 50 million additional people facing “acute food insecurity” by the end of next year, according to the UN World Food Programme. The organisation said: “Some countries are already experiencing below-average rainfall, flooding and unusually hot temperatures, while others are expected to face deteriorating conditions during upcoming planting seasons and harvests.”

RISING COSTS: Global food prices reached a three-year high in July, reported Reuters. This is based on the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) food price index, which tracks price changes of key food commodities. The Guardian said the FAO “cited heatwaves as a factor hitting wheat yields in several key producing countries”. 

CROPS HIT: Many outlets reported on extreme weather impacting crops. Bloomberg detailed the impacts of projected maize yield declines in Kenya. The Associated Press examined climate effects for durian growers in Malaysia. In Italy, Reuters looked at drought-hit rice farms and Fortune noted risks for “cheese banks”. The Guardian covered possible olive oil price rises.

DRY FIELDS: Analysis from the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit thinktank indicated that this year’s harvest in the UK could be the “worst” on record. BBC News said this could translate to smaller vegetables or higher supermarket prices. Almost three-quarters of England is now in drought, noted ITV News. An article in the Conversation explored how the UK’s food system could be made more resilient to climate change.

RECORD LOWS: Forest loss in Colombia reached its lowest levels in two decades over 2022-25, although “deforestation ⁠figures in 2025 exceeded those of 2024”, reported Reuters. The newswire added that “land grabbing for cattle ranching and unplanned infrastructure, ​not ⁠illicit crops” were the main drivers of deforestation. Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon also continued to decline, “fall[ing] to its lowest level in 13 years”, said Mongabay.

‘ERODING’ PROGRESS: At the same time, forest loss is “surging” in Bolivia, which “recorded the world’s second-largest area of tropical forest loss in 2025”, wrote Bloomberg. This “sharply diverging” trend “erodes conservation progress”, the outlet added. A recent study, covered by Mongabay, found that “millions of hectares of Amazon rainforest are newly at risk” of legal deforestation, following many companies’ decisions to withdraw from the Amazon soy moratorium. 

POLITICAL PLEDGES: Brazil’s president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva launched his campaign for a fourth term, reported Le Monde. He has “promised to protect Brazil’s reserves of rare earths…from foreign control”, added Al Jazeera. Meanwhile, Colombia’s new rightwing president pledged to revive oil and gas in a “sharp shift” from the policies of the former leftwing leader, said the Associated Press. 

News and views

  • OCEAN TEMPS TICK UP: Last month’s global average sea surface temperatures were “hotter than any other July on record”, reported Oceanographic and many others. High ocean temperatures can cause “devastating die-offs” in lobsters, crabs, scallops, clams, oysters and other marine life, the outlet said. 
  • SCORCHED: Nearly 200 wildfires are burning across the US and south-western Canada, reported USA Today. Fires are also spreading in Indonesia, including across “dried-out” peatlands in Sumatra, said Kompas.  
  • INTERSESSIONALS: Weeks of nature discussions in Nairobi are due to end on 12 August, paving a path towards COP17 talks this October. UN biodiversity chief Astrid Schomaker told Reuters that businesses are “not yet acting” on the significant risk biodiversity loss poses. 
  • ‘VICTIMS’ OF EL NIÑO: Hundreds of dead seabirds on the beaches of Ecuador “could already be victims of the building El Niño”, scientists told the New York Times. The birds appeared “emaciated” and sea temperatures have been “exceptionally elevated”, the outlet said, affecting that availability of fish in coastal waters.
  • NEW PLAN: China’s new “five-year-plan” for ecological protection included a target to expand forest cover to 25.8% by 2030, reported China Energy Net. State-run newspaper China Daily said forest cover is already at 25.09%. 
  • GLACIERS SHRINKING: Kilimanjaro and other mountains in east Africa will soon  lose their glaciers, a scientist wrote in the Conversation. The article explained the ecological, scientific and spiritual impacts of these losses.  

Spotlight

Uganda’s food crisis 

Elizabeth Nsimadala

This week, Carbon Brief speaks to Elizabeth Nsimadala, a Ugandan banana farmer and president of the Eastern African Farmers Federation, about the effects of extreme weather on farming in her region. 

At least 19 people recently died from hunger amid a long-lasting drought and crop failures in Uganda.  

Carbon Brief: How does climate change impact farmers in eastern Africa? 

Elizabeth Nsimadala: Farmers face the biggest brunt of climate change. We are the people on the frontline…The agriculture sector in Africa and elsewhere, we have no safety net. So usually when any change, any extreme [occurs]…there are no safety nets…We felt that we needed to adapt to the shocks, because we are living with climate change.”

CB: How has extreme weather impacted your own farming? 

EN: When you look at the El Niño [weather pattern] that happened around 2023, most of our farmers’ gardens were washed away. I had just planted beans and because I had not dug the contours and my farm was on a slope, after the planting, the El Niño came and everything was just washed away. We saw flooding across the region…We saw animals dying, we saw new pests and diseases coming up.

CB: What can farmers do to adapt to some of these effects?  

EN: [Lack of government investment] leaves the sector vulnerable to all these shocks. As farmers, what we can do [is more] on-farm adaptation…There is also a shift now to moving to agroecology, where we are practicing nature-positive solutions…This should be a fertile ground to invest in the local production markets, where we are moving away from synthetic to organic fertilisers. 

CB: What is the main barrier to making these changes?

EN: Access to financing. [Improving access would be] a game-changer, because once you have financing, then you can deal with the rest. You can adapt. You can be able to scale these practices. You can be able to mitigate most of these big challenges…What we are trying to do is mobilising resources internally, through either small organisations – through the village savings and loan associations – or maybe at national levels in the savings and credit co-operatives. 

CB: How are farmers in your region feeling about forecasts of a strong El Niño, which raises global temperatures and reshapes extreme weather?  

EN: There’s a lot of fear in us when you look at what happened in 2023-24 with the drought and all that. The loss [farmers] made, some of them are still paying debts. Some of them have been devastated. Some of them are thinking maybe we don’t need to be in this sector. But…there’s no alternative. 

Watch, read, listen

CYCLOSPORIASIS OUTBREAK: Grist explained how climate change and “uneven public-health messaging” have contributed to the current outbreak of cyclosporiasis in the US.

MORE BEEF: China’s beef herd has “expanded by a third since 2018”, as the northern part of the country has become wetter due to climate change, wrote the New York Times.

BRAZILIAN ELECTIONS: Dialogue Earth explored the challenges facing Brazil’s Indigenous politicians and candidates, ahead of October’s elections.

MYANMAR’S MANGROVES: Infrastructure projects and electricity shortages have put “pressure” on the mangroves of Myanmar’s Rakhine State, one of south-east Asia’s mangrove hotspots, reported Mekong Eye.

New science

  • Modelling revealed “hotspot” regions for compound climate hazards, where two events, such as heat and drought, occur at the same time | Global and Planetary Change 
  • Global rice yields could decline by 8.1% under 1C of global warming – a figure twice that of other estimates | Science Advances 
  • Four-fifths of studied butterfly species have expanded their ranges, often due to climate change and extreme weather | Nature Ecology & Evolution 
  • Global drought has grown since 2001, with nearly three-quarters of the Earth’s land area experiencing reductions in its carbon-absorption capacity as a result | Advances in Climate Change Research
  • Six sub-national mechanisms in the Argentine Chaco promote the conversion of forest to agricultural land, threatening to undermine international anti-deforestation efforts | Nature Sustainability

Noticeboard

This edition of Cropped was written by Orla Dwyer and Giuliana Viglione. 

Cropped is edited by Dr Giuliana Viglione. Please send tips and feedback to [email protected].