Valencia floods are a tragic reminder of climate change threat to food supply

The images of Valencia’s flooding this week are nothing short of apocalyptic. We’ve seen entire towns flooded, stacks of cars piled up among debris, and people dragging their possessions through waist-high levels of water. Most tragically, over 140 people were reported dead at the time of writing, with many more missing.

A year’s worth of heavy rains hit the region in the span of a few hours on Tuesday. The deluge shut down roads, destroying houses and crucial infrastructure in the process. The flash floods also submerged thousands of hectares of farmland, in a region that produces a lot of Spain’s fresh produce, including two-thirds of the country’s citrus.

As we reported, AVA-ASAJA – the Valencian Agricultural Producers’ Association – said it expected “significant damage” to crops across the region, as well as in neighbouring Almeria and Andalusia. It is thought many growers have lost huge chunks of their harvests, with citrus, persimmon and vegetables among the most affected crops.

However, as AVA-ASAJA points out, it is still too early to assess the full extent of the damage. This is because the storms also caused extensive damage to rural roads and agricultural infrastructure such as greenhouses, packing plants and other machinery.

Many farmers haven’t even been able to reach their land yet. But several agricultural figures have warned there will likely be some shortages of goods coming out of the region in the next few weeks.

Valencia is not a complete stranger to these storms – the extreme weather event behind the latest floods, also known as a Dana, is common in the eastern region of Spain during the autumn season.

However, this is the hardest the region has been hit by heavy rains and hailstorms in recent years. Insurance analysts in Spain are already predicting this to be the most expensive natural disaster to ever hit the country. And meteorologists are pointing to climate change as a key reason for the gravity of the event.

“Of course there have been floods before and also other extreme weather events – but what we see in more recent years, ever stronger, is that many of these extreme weather events are more intense than they would have been without climate change,” climatologist Friederike Otto told Radio 4’s Today programme.

This is not just Spain’s problem – it’s all of ours. The Mediterranean nation is one of the biggest fruit & veg exporters to the UK and the EU. Britain alone accounts for 12% of Spain’s fresh produce exports, according to official trade data: Spain supplies 25% of Britain’s fruit imports and 8% of its vegetable imports.

We’ve already seen the impact of droughts in the same region of eastern Spain. A year ago, UK customers were struggling to buy essentials such as tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers for weeks due to the tough conditions.

Plus, climate change is “wreaking havoc” here at home too, according to a Met Office report, threatening our home-grown produce. In summer, the Met revealed 2023 was the second-warmest year on record, and had also brought about record levels of rain.

The tragic floods in Valencia are a stark reminder of how vulnerable our food supplies are to increasingly volatile weather, and how important it is to have a strong food security policy in place.

They are also evidence that the industry needs to manage consumer expectations – not least because of how dependent we are on out-of-season, foreign produce, but also because the prices we pay for our food should reflect real production costs. Now, more than ever, we need to ensure proper support for growers – not just in Spain, but in risk-prone areas around the globe – in the face of heightened jeopardy from climate change.