“From 1996 to 2024, a total of 44 countries have approved planting of biotech/GM crops. The addition of Ghana and Kenya in 2024 propelled the global agri-biotech landscape to a record of 31 countries. This milestone marks the highest level of country adopters since 1996, breaking the five-year standstill since 2019. The global area planted to GM crops reached 218.71 million hectares or 540.43 million acres in 2024 as detailed in Table 2. The accumulated planted area from 1996 to 2024 was 3.75 billion hectares or 9.28 billion acres. The accumulated area reflects the significant expansion and sustained adoption of biotech/GM crops in the past 29 years of commercialization.”

From ISAAA.

Summary: Olive oil prices spiked in 2023 amid heat and drought in Spain, prompting widespread claims that climate change was driving the industry into crisis. Production has since rebounded and prices have fallen sharply, undercutting the hysteria, but no corrections have been issued. The episode illustrates how short-term agricultural disruptions are sometimes unreasonably framed as evidence of long-term climate catastrophe.

It’s the follow-up story that never gets written. An agricultural commodity experiences a period of below-average yields and rising prices, and it is reported as a climate change–induced crisis. Then, after another year or two, the trend reverses, but there are few, if any, attempts to correct the record.

Olive oil prices are a recent example. Spain, the world’s largest producer of olives for oil, experienced severe heat and drought in the summers of 2022 and 2023, contributing to much lower yields and major price spikes in 2023 and into 2024.

There were several news accounts at the time warning about a new reality in which human-induced warming would decimate olive yields. An August 2023 CNN story entitled “Olive Oil is in Trouble as Extreme Heat and Drought Push the Industry Into Crisis” was typical. Citing scientists and industry experts, the article told us that the episode “would have been virtually impossible without climate change.”

The story, and others like it, painted a bleak future for those making their living from olives and a new normal of higher olive oil prices for consumers. Beyond olives, CNN informed readers that “Experts warn of worse to come for food production, as the human-caused climate crisis increases the frequency and severity of extreme weather.”

However, toward the end of 2024, olive oil prices began falling sharply and remain well below their peak, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The two most recent crops in Spain and other olive-growing nations have yielded enough to increase olive oil production substantially. Overall, the olive oil industry appears to be most of the way back to normal—hardly a crisis.

That should have surprised no one, especially the self-described experts relied upon in the gloomy coverage. Yields for olives, as with virtually every other agricultural commodity, have experienced year-to-year fluctuations throughout recorded history. While climate change’s influence on olives is entirely possible, an off year or two proves nothing. Over the longer term, overall yields for food crops have increased severalfold, especially in recent decades, when climate change was supposedly a headwind. Improved agricultural methods—which depend on fossil fuels for energy and fertilizer—have swamped any adverse climate impacts, if such impacts exist.

It is also worth noting the substantial scientific evidence that the release of carbon dioxide, blamed for contributing to climate change, has benefits for plant growth and may well be a net positive for agriculture. This may also help explain why agricultural bad news rarely has staying power while long-term trends remain positive.

In any event, the media outlets that raised the olive oil alarms ought to publish follow-up stories reporting the good news and conceding that the climate change link is not nearly as clear-cut as the original coverage suggested. None have done so.

Maybe it’s because they are too busy writing about the chocolate crisis.

“Almeria has been farmland since the time of the Umayyad caliphate—Campo de Dalías is derived from the Arabic word daliyah, meaning “vine”. But the geography of the region has historically been unkind to farmers. The towering peaks of the Sierra Nevada and Sierra de Gádor mountain ranges to the north block rain clouds from reaching the coastal plains. Water is scarce (rain falls on average fewer than 50 days a year), and the Levanter wind tears across the plains, sometimes at over 100kph (62mph).

The plastic sea developed in response to these unfavourable conditions, beginning as a handful of simple shelters to shield local crops against the elements. In the 1960s pioneering farmers realised that plants hidden under plastic grew faster and more successfully, and began constructing greenhouses.

Since then, cultivation in the region has boomed. Europe’s vegetable garden now yields 3.5m tonnes of produce all year round, enough to feed half a billion people. Beneath the tarpaulins, bell peppers, tomatoes, watermelons, courgettes, aubergines and cucumbers flourish.

The region’s micro-climate has also benefited: while the effects of global warming have caused temperatures to soar in the rest of the country, Almeria has been on a cooling trend of 0.3°C per decade since the 1990s. This is thanks to the vast surface created by the greenhouses’ plastic roofs, which reflects sunlight back into the atmosphere.”

From The Economist.

“Sugar prices have tumbled to their lowest level in more than five years as weight-loss drugs accelerate a drop in demand by pushing consumers to ditch sweet treats in favour of protein.

Raw cane sugar futures in New York dropped to less than 14 cents a pound on Wednesday, the lowest since October 2020 and less than half the level they hit in late 2023. Traders say the move reflects a sharper than forecast slowdown in consumption in the US and other wealthy economies, while demand in developing countries is growing at a slower pace than expected.

So-called GLP-1 weight-loss injections — which work by activating the glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor hormone that makes people feel fuller — have been a crucial driver of reducing cravings for sweet flavours. GLP-1s are the basis of medications including Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Ozempic and Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro and Zepbound.

‘The drop in consumption, or the speed of it, has taken the [sugar] industry unaware,’ said Gurdev Gill at broker Marex, adding that Mexico and the US have been the clearest examples, while demand data in Europe has also been ‘challenging’ for sugar prices.”

From Financial Times.