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Extreme weather is reshaping India's food inflation, with tomatoes, onions, and potatoes (TOP) emerging as the most vulnerable crops.

- JITENDRA CHOUBEY @New Delhi

A new analysis by Climate Trends, a Delhi-based organization, has connected the dots between climate change, crop losses and rising food prices.

The study shows how extreme heatwaves and erratic rainfall have severely impacted TOP production over the past five years, pushing up prices of these staples and driving food inflation to alarming levels. Drawing on Reserve Bank of India studies, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) analysis and official datasets, the research highlights how weather shocks are becoming a recurring driver of inflation.

A RBI study shows that rainfall changes raise vegetable inflation by about 1.24 percentage points, while temperature changes increase it by around 1.30 points. These short-duration, perishable crops are highly sensitive to sudden climate shocks, and their concentrated production in a few states makes them especially prone to volatility.

Food inflation in India, which had eased after 2014 due to improved supply, spiked in 2019-20 as unseasonal rains damaged kharif onions in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh, and potato crops in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. The trend continued during the pandemic, moderated briefly in 2021-22, and climbed again due to post-pandemic demand and the Russia-Ukraine war.