Wheat, Sugar, and Now Tomatoes: Extreme Weather Dents India’s Food Supplies

Last year it was wheat, then sugar. This year, it is tomatoes.

As weather patterns grow erratic — rainfalls too heavy and often out of sync with farming calendars, and heat cycles beginning earlier and breaking records — food shortages are one of the many ways India is reeling from climate change.

Supplies have been shrinking, and prices shooting up — in the case of tomatoes, at least a fivefold increase between May and mid-July according to official figures, and even a steeper spike based on consumer accounts. The government has been forced to take emergency measures, curbing exports and injecting subsidized supplies to the market to reduce the shock on the world’s most populous nation.