When we first wrote about this in June, UNEP’s World Environment Day urged us all to pay closer attention to the pressing signals our planet is sending. A brewing “Super El Niño” certainly felt like an unquestionnable signal.
Four months on, and the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) now describes it as a firmly established event which is strengthening rapidly, with a near-100% likelihood of persisting through February 2027. For a farming sector already under strain from a punishing summer and volatile input costs, it matters that we understand not only what is coming, but how it will reach us. So what is El Niño? Why is this one different? And what might it mean for UK farmers, landowners, and the food we all eat? Here, we break down the latest…
What is El Niño?
El Niño, meaning “little boy” in Spanish, is a natural climate phenomenon that occurs when the trade winds which usually push warm surface water westward across the Pacific Ocean weaken or reverse, allowing a vast pool of warm water to spread eastward instead (as seen on the map below). This releases extra heat into the atmosphere and shifts weather systems around the world, bringing drought to some regions and flooding to others.
El Niño sea surface temperature map, showing areas of sea surface temperature that are higher (red) or lower (blue) than normal. NOAA
Why is this one different?
Importantly, the scale. According to the WMO, the key Pacific temperature measure rose from 1.6°C above normal in June to 2.5°C in August, and is forecast to average around 3.7°C for October to December, peaking around December. That would be the highest since observations began, and above the previous record of 2.6°C set in 2015-16.
Equally important is the baseline. Rather than create new heat, El Niño releases heat the ocean has already been storing. That ocean is the warmest we have ever measured, which is why strong events so often coincide with the hottest years on record, and the Met Office says 2027 is very likely to become the warmest year on record.
What makes the current situation particularly alarming, however, is the compounding effect of long-term, human-induced climate change on top of that natural heat cycle.
“El Niño conditions will pour fuel on the fire of a warming world… the only effective response is climate action equal to the crisis” — UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres
The unequal geography of risk
El Niño doesn’t affect every region equally. In sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, reduced rainfall during an El Niño year can wipe out staple crops such as maize, sorghum, and cassava, especially in places where food insecurity is already acute. During the powerful 2015–16 event, southern Africa saw widespread crop failures, pushing tens of millions of people into crisis. In South and Southeast Asia, an unstable monsoon can threaten rice and wheat harvests in some of the world’s most densely populated farming regions in the world, and India’s monsoon has already been among its weakest in almost two decades. In Latin America, areas such as Brazil’s Cerrado and Central America’s “Dry Corridor” are at greater risk of drought.
The crucial point here is that these are not isolated shocks. Modern global food systems are deeply interconnected and highly concentrated, with only four crops (wheat, maize, rice and soybean) accounting for 60% of calories grown by farmers. Therefore, a harvest shortfall in one major producing region can permeate through global commodity markets.
This is no more evident than during a significant El Niño event, which can trigger what climate scientists call teleconnections, in which simultaneous weather anomalies across continents lead to correlated crop failures. Experts evaluating the unfolding El Niño scenario forecast that price fluctuations of 10–50% for essential commodities remain a distinct possibility; however, more vulnerable crops such as rice, palm oil, and coffee could witness even more dramatic surges as global supply conditions tighten.
For a food system already being asked to produce more, more sustainably, amid a less predictable climate, a Super El Niño would represent a serious additional stress test.
El Niño can cause severe droughts in some parts of the planet and torrential rain in others.
Is the UK insulated, or more exposed than we think?
Britain may seem geographically remote from El Niño’s worst impacts, and in some respects it is. However, the notion that British agriculture and food supply are somehow shielded from these global dynamics is a comfortable illusion.
The UK imports roughly 45% of its food, and much of what arrives on British plates travels through global commodity markets that would be directly affected by a major El Niño event. Wheat, edible oils, and animal feed prices are all sensitive to global supply conditions. Moreover, a significant share of the UK’s fresh produce comes from regions that are directly affected. Southern Spain, for instance, which is already contending with worsening drought, supplies a large proportion of the salads, tomatoes, and citrus fruits that stock British supermarkets. The risk of prolonged drought in “Europe’s fruit basket” is already evident, and El Niño has the potential to intensify it further.
The effects aren’t purely imported, either. Past El Niño events have been linked to milder, wetter UK winters, increased storminess, and a higher risk of winter flooding that disrupts early fieldwork, along with more variable springs that swing rapidly between warm/dry and cool/wet spells. If the 2026-27 event brings a mild, wet winter, then the most acute risk for domestic food production will be that it arrives on land already under pressure. The unprecedented early summer heat and sustained drought resulted in England’s worst cereals and oilseed harvest since records began. That swing from drought to deluge will likely present farmers with difficult drilling conditions, poor opportunities for slug control, and waterlogged soils that slow root establishment.
None of this rivals the scale of disruption facing producers in El Niño’s direct path, but it’s a reminder that “indirect” doesn’t mean “no impact” at the farm gate.
Planning for uncertainty
Predicting the specific trajectory and impact of any El Niño event is inherently uncertain. Decades of investment and development in meteorological technology can still only tell us the likelihood of certain outcomes. But what that investment has given us is time to prepare for these events.
Guidance from the Nature Friendly Farming Network points to some practical steps:
- Keep soil covered: cover crops or grass help it hold water.
- Check the kit: fencing, roofs, gutters, yards and ventilation, before the winter storms
- Stock up: feed and dry bedding for livestock, and a plan in place if fields flood
- Stay flexible: watch Met Office outlooks and be ready to change winter plans
Beyond these, resilience starts with a clear picture of what’s growing where, how exposed a holding or sourcing region is to drought, flooding or input-cost shocks, and where there is room to build resilience, whether through diversifying crops, improving soil health, or restoring natural water management. At Land App, this is the gap we work in. For farmers and estates, that means mapping tools that make this picture clear at the farm level. For food retailers and supply chains, our Nature, Risk and Resilience Reporting tool does the same job at scale, pulling together farm-level data across a sourcing footprint to show where climate- and nature-related risks are concentrated and where investment in resilience would have the greatest impact. It’s also the kind of groundwork that matters regardless of what this particular El Niño ends up doing.
