Asian Heatwave and food supply

Roughly about 11 months ago, in May 2023, weeks long heatwave hit many part of Asia. While most focus are directed towards the concerned of the health effect of heatwave towards the society, the secondary but also would be very critical in a long run, are the effect of this extreme hot weather towards the food production industry that consist of agriculture and horticulture.

Among the countries that were very much affected during 2023 heatwave in Asia, were countries in which their main economic activities are agriculture. These countries, like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Thailand and Southern part of China, produce significant amount of world agriculture commodity. India, Thailand and Vietnam , for example, contributed to certain percentage of the world rice supply. The heatwave that were experience from mid March untill May 2023, were said to be the highest ever recorded in Asia with temperatures soaring to 45.5 o Celcius in certain part of Thailand and India.

In China, their main news media agency, reported that over 2 million hectare of arable farmland were badly affected by the heatwave, and 21,000 hectares of rice field were destroyed in Bangladesh. While in Japan, the agriculture agency, reported the reduction in rice production in 2023 by 5.6% due to the heatwave.

Unfortunately, just 3 months into the 2024, the same heatwave phenomenon is happening again. And it seems that the number of territories that is affected have increased. While the intensity of the heat wave is reported to be more intense compare to last year, this 2024 heatwave can be felt as far south as Indonesia. In Malaysia, the northern and north eastern part of the nation’s peninsular, in which most of the rice cultivation took place, were adversely affected. Thousand of hectare of paddy field were reported in dire states of drought, and major rivers start to dry up.

In Indonesia, the heatwave have worsen the dry spell that have been faced by most are in Java island since the last 5 months. The Indonesian Meteorology department have issues warning to the citizen of the starting of the drought season by mid of March 2024 and expected to last for few months.

The negative effect of the heatwave of 2023 towards agriculture activities and the food production is still being face by the Asian society until this day, and the coming of this heatwave and dry season of 2024 is expected to bring more damage to the industry and food production ecosystem. The most predominant changes that happened in the food supply chain in Asia is the limited movement of the main food commodity stock between nations. Trades of major grains like rice and wheat have become limited and the surge of it’s price have created inflation in many countries.

India, as one of the biggest rice exporter that account for 40% of the rice trade stock, have introduce few new Rice export ban rules in order to preserve their domestic stock, for their domestic self sustainability. This effort have proven to create strain on the food affordability and sustainability of other countries that depend heavily on Indian rice export, such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines and African countries. In Malaysia alone, the rice inflation have gone up to almost 65% in just under 5 months, creating economic stress and political unrest among its 36 million citizen.

It is fear that with the much more intense heatwave and drought of 2024 that the South East Asian are currently facing, the food supply and affordability issue will become more critical, threatening the region’s food security stability amid their weakened economy growth. It seems like for countries such as Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, the future looks very fragile and bleak.