With various global organisations predicting that the evolving El Nino could be one of the severest, the weather event could impact various crops across the world, from maize and rice to coffee to palm oil.
“This El Nino is likely to raise drought risk to cropland most in Southern Africa, Central America, northern South America and South-East Asia, threatening maize, rice, sugar, palm oil and coffee output,” said research agency BMI, a unit of Fitch Solutions.
In past El Ninos, the share of cropland exposed to high-intensity drought rose by 11-12 percentage points on average across these regions, with Zambia, Zimbabwe, Central America’s Dry Corridor, the Philippines, Thailand, Guyana and Suriname among the hardest hit.
