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The Tomato is Now a Portent of Doom
Nobody likes bad weather. However, if you happened to be a tomato plant you would find it particularly inconvenient. When temperatures drop too low you would be unable to produce fruit, which as far as I’m concerned is the whole point of your existence. For us humans, that means no tomatoes to harvest.
This is exactly the current situation in Spain and Morocco, where persistent cold temperatures has caused a significant decline in the harvest of produce such as tomatoes and peppers. In countries that import these products — like the UK and Ireland — the result is empty supermarket shelves.
For probably the first time in my life, I went into a shop and and a product was unavailable — not because it had sold out, but because the crop had failed. No homemade spaghetti bolgonese for me this week. Sadly, such a tragic outcome is unlikely to be the last time that extremes of the climate hinders my weekly shop.
As the climate crisis intensifies food production will come under growing strain and shortages of products such as tomatoes will occur with ever-increasing frequency. And it won’t just be tomatoes. The harvests of major staple crops such as wheat, rice and corn…
