2nd September 2026
The Highlands May Be Cooler, But Our Food Bills Aren’t: Britain Faces a New Food Price Shock
For years, climate change has often seemed like somebody else's problem.
We watched television pictures of heatwaves in southern Europe, wildfires in California and droughts in Africa and thought that Britain, sitting in the North Atlantic with its cool, wet climate, was somehow protected.
This summer has rather dramatically challenged that assumption.
The summer of 2026 has been confirmed as the hottest ever recorded in the UK, with an average temperature of 16.5°C. Scotland had its sixth-warmest summer. Across Britain there has been drought, wildfires, water shortages and serious disruption to farming. The cereal harvest is expected to be the worst since detailed records began.
And now there is another concern developing in the background.
El Niño is strengthening.
That matters because Britain's food supply does not begin and end in Britain.
The food on our shelves comes from a much bigger world
Britain produces a substantial amount of its own food, but it is not self-sufficient.
The latest government figures put the UK's food production-to-supply ratio at around 60% in 2025, meaning that roughly 40% of the food consumed is supplied through imports. The figure is considerably better for indigenous foods, at around 72%, but that still leaves Britain dependent upon international markets.
And the figures hide some enormous differences.
Britain produces most of its milk, sheepmeat, cereals and eggs. But it produces only around 55% of the vegetables and 17% of the fruit it consumes.
That means a poor harvest in Britain is only part of the problem.
If drought damages crops in Spain, India, Pakistan or another major supplier, British shoppers can still feel the consequences.
The UK Government itself acknowledges that climate change and extreme weather in countries from which we import food can affect the availability and price of fresh produce.
So the idea that Britain can simply grow its way out of an international food crisis is unrealistic.
El Niño adds another layer of uncertainty
El Niño is not simply a period of hot weather.
It is a large-scale change in Pacific Ocean temperatures that can alter weather patterns across much of the world. Its effects vary from one region to another, but they can include drought in some important agricultural areas and excessive rainfall in others.
That is why food traders and agricultural markets are watching it carefully.
Recent reports have already highlighted concerns about crops in Asia as a powerful El Niño develops.
There is a particularly uncomfortable possibility here.
The world is entering an El Niño period after several years in which climate change has already produced increasingly disruptive weather.
In other words, we aren't starting from a stable position.
We are adding another source of uncertainty to a food system already dealing with drought, heat, war, disrupted shipping and high energy costs.
Britain has just had a warning of its own
The extraordinary weather this summer has demonstrated that Britain is not immune.
The Met Office says the UK's record-breaking summer was made dramatically more likely by human-caused climate change. What would once have been an extremely rare event is becoming something that can occur much more frequently.
And farmers have felt the consequences.
Cereals have been badly affected by heat and drought, while some other crops have actually benefited from the conditions. British berry growers, for example, have reported a strong harvest in some varieties.
That tells us something important.
Climate change does not simply mean that everything gets worse.
It means that farming becomes more unpredictable.
One crop may thrive while another fails.
One region may have an excellent harvest while another suffers drought.
That unpredictability is itself an economic problem because food producers, processors, retailers and consumers all need some idea of what supplies will look like several months ahead.
The Highlands have an advantage, but it isn't a shield
This is where the situation becomes particularly interesting for Caithness and the Highlands.
We are cooler than much of England and considerably cooler than southern Europe. That could become an advantage as temperatures rise.
There may be crops that become increasingly difficult to grow in southern parts of Europe but more suitable in Scotland.
Some Scottish agricultural land could therefore become more valuable in a warmer world.
But that does not mean the Highlands can sit comfortably on the sidelines.
The Highland Council's own climate assessment identifies food security, drought, flooding, heat, wildfire, ecosystem damage and disruption to critical infrastructure among the region's increasing risks. It also concludes that current and planned adaptation is not keeping pace with climate change.
That is an important warning.
The Highlands may be cooler, but we still need roads, ferries, electricity, water, fuel and supply chains to get food from the farm to the consumer.
If any of those systems are disrupted, being 10 degrees cooler than southern England doesn't help very much.
Then there is the oil problem
This is where climate and geopolitics begin to collide.
Food production is heavily dependent on energy.
Farm machinery needs diesel.
Fertiliser production requires substantial amounts of energy.
Food processing uses electricity and gas.
Refrigerated goods need energy.
And everything eventually has to be transported.
That means an increase in the oil price can eventually find its way into the price of a loaf of bread, a packet of vegetables or a meal in a restaurant.
The Government's own food-security assessment recognises that domestic food production is still dependent upon global inputs, including fertiliser, energy, packaging and other critical supplies.
So even if a Highland farmer produces exactly the same amount of food next year as this year, the cost of producing it could still rise.
That is the part of food inflation which consumers don't always see.
Wars we cannot control can still reach the supermarket
The same applies to international conflicts.
The war in Ukraine demonstrated how quickly disruption to grain and fertiliser markets can affect food prices around the world.
The current instability around energy supplies and shipping routes creates another potential shock.
A conflict thousands of miles away can push up the price of oil.
That raises transport and production costs.
Those higher costs move through wholesalers and processors.
Eventually, some of them reach the supermarket shelf.
This is why food security is no longer simply about whether Britain has enough farmland.
It is about whether the whole system can continue functioning when several things go wrong at once.
And households are already under pressure
This matters because consumers don't enter this period with unlimited spare money.
Household budgets have already absorbed years of higher food, energy, housing and insurance costs.
Recent retail data shows food prices are already being affected by higher energy and fuel costs, with fresh produce particularly exposed to the effects of weather.
If food prices start climbing again, households have fewer places left to cut back.
They can postpone buying a new television.
They can delay replacing a car.
They can reduce meals out.
But eventually they still have to buy food.
That makes food inflation particularly damaging for lower-income households because a much larger proportion of their income goes on essentials.
Could the Highlands actually benefit?
There is another side to this story which should not be ignored.
The Highlands has land.
It has farming traditions.
It has a cooler climate.
It has substantial renewable energy potential.
And if climate change makes parts of southern Europe increasingly difficult for agriculture, Scotland could find itself with an important strategic advantage.
But taking advantage of that opportunity will require investment.
Water management will become more important.
So will soil protection, drainage, agricultural research, resilient transport infrastructure and reliable energy supplies.
The Highland Climate Change Risk and Opportunity Assessment has already identified opportunities as well as risks, looking at how the region could change through to the 2050s and beyond.
The danger is that Britain talks about these opportunities while failing to invest sufficiently in the infrastructure needed to exploit them.
The real threat is volatility
Perhaps the biggest mistake would be to predict a simple future in which food prices continually rise because of climate change.
It is unlikely to be that straightforward.
There will be bumper harvests.
There will be failed harvests.
Some crops will become easier to grow in Britain.
Others will become harder.
Some overseas suppliers will struggle.
Others may benefit.
Technology will improve.
Farmers will adapt.
Markets will respond.
But what could become increasingly common is volatility.
A year of cheap food followed by a sudden price spike.
A crop that is plentiful one year and scarce the next.
A weather event in one part of the world causing shortages somewhere thousands of miles away.
And then, just when the food system begins to recover, another shock arrives.
That is what makes the combination of climate change, El Niño, energy prices and geopolitical conflict so worrying.
We shouldn't panic, but we shouldn't be complacent either
Britain is not facing an immediate shortage of food.
The country's food system is relatively resilient and its diverse international trading relationships provide an important buffer. The Government's food-security analysis makes clear that imports can actually strengthen resilience by allowing Britain to compensate when domestic production suffers a shock.
But resilience is not the same as immunity.
The question is what happens when several shocks arrive together.
A drought in Britain.
A poor cereal harvest.
A bad harvest somewhere else.
A strengthening El Niño.
Higher oil prices.
Expensive fertiliser.
And disruption to shipping.
None of those events is necessarily enough to create a crisis on its own.
Put several together and the pressure becomes much harder to absorb.
For Caithness, there is perhaps a final lesson.
The Highlands may eventually become one of the more agriculturally valuable parts of a warmer Britain.
But that advantage will not happen automatically.
We will need to protect farmland, water, transport links, energy supplies and the businesses that keep the food chain moving.
Climate change is no longer simply a question of whether Britain will become warmer.
It is becoming a question of how much it will cost to feed Britain when the weather becomes less predictable.
And that is a question which will eventually reach every household budget.
The Highlands may be cooler.
But there is no guarantee that our food bills will be.