New food prices research in Europe shows that they have increased by up to 50% due to climate change, whether it is drought, floods or extreme heat waves, according to the explanations given by specialists in the field.
Food has increased alarmingly due to climate change. Photo shutterstock
“The research is presented with extreme situations (drought, heat wave, floods) that led to significant increases in prices at different categories of food. In the case of Europe, the case of the Severe drought in Spain from 2023 has been presented, which led to an increase in the price of olive oil throughout the European Union by 50% from January 2023 to 2024. This extreme case marks the maximum price increase for a food. On the other hand, the recent UN report on the status of food and nutrition in the world 2025 shows continuous increases in food prices from 2018 to 2024, on all continents. From the graph presented in our press release it can be seen that in Europe, the price of food per person and per day (in dollars at the parity of the purchasing power) has increased from approx. $ 2.8 in 2018 at approx. 4 dollars in 2024“, He told”truth“Praveena Sridhar, the scientific and policy coordinator of the movement saves the soil.
He added that the movement saves the soil has issued an urgent warning: the silent crisis of soil degradation is a major but ignored factor of this economic tension and a critical threat to the food security in the future.
Food prices raised all over the world
At the recent UN summit on Ethiopia food systems, it has become clear that the tendency to increase food prices can be observed worldwide. The new UN report, published on July 28, 2025: The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2025 (the state of food and nutrition in the world 2025) stressed that, in each region, from 2018, the cost per person and per day (in dollars to the betting power) has increased.
Credit: UN Report: State of Food Security and Nutrition 2025 & Carbon Brief
Due to intensive industrial agricultural practices, the soil becomes less resistant to climatic changes, the more they are more and more frequent, such as drought or heavy rains, which makes extremely vulnerable agricultural crops and increases food prices, shows in analysis. In Europe, this is a catastrophe, given that the region is a hot point of climate change, warming twice as much as the global average.
Record prices in Europe
Exemplifying statistics in Europe support this gloomy image:
· The shock of the olive oil: the Mediterranean basin is facing an unprecedented drought. Spain – the largest world producer of olive oil – faced in 2023 with the worst drought of 1905. The non -resistant soil directly contributed to increasing the prices of olive oil by 50% throughout the European Union, from January 2023 to January 2024.
· Volatile harvests, volatile prices: the United Kingdom registered a 22% increase in potato price during January-February 2024, demonstrating how the lack of soil resistance to abundant precipitation also affects yields and prices.
· Decreases in the future: projections are awful. Within a high emission scenario, the yield of corn in the Mediterranean region of Europe could decrease by up to 40% by 2050. Wheat losses are estimated between 15% and 25%, both in Eastern Europe and in Western Europe. These are not mere statistics; They represent a direct threat to the availability and accessibility of basic foods. Other research suggests that environmental pressures, including climatic changes and soil degradation, could lead to increased food prices by more than a third by 2050 – even in richer countries such as the United Kingdom.
In addition to these specific food products, on average, the inflation of food prices in Europe, although it has decreased from the historical peak of 15% of March 2023, remained at a high level of 5.7% in 2024, well above the pandemic norm of 2.1%, which can be considered a rate of inflation “”healthy”.
