Climate change plants the seed of higher food prices

So, according to the Met Office, it has apparently been the hottest 12-month period in Britain since records began 350 years ago. Britain has the longest series of reliable records, going back to 1669 - the so-called Central England Temperature series. So while the country may not be as warm as it was in the early medieval period - that was when Greenland was colonised by the Danes - what is happening is clearly quite remarkable.

Whatever view you take of the reasons for global warming, however, this change in temperature seems to be starting to have an impact on world food prices. Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, told the Commons Treasury Select Committee last week that the rise in inflation "reflects a rise in food prices caused by a weather-induced global reduction in supply".

A cynic might suggest that he was simply trying to shift the blame for the Bank's complacency about inflation, but he does have a point.

The UBS economics team has been looking at the scientific work on the link and agrees that higher global temperatures do lower the yields for staple crops and that large tracts of land are liable to flooding. There is a further point that converting food crops to fuel - biodiesel and ethanol - is pushing up the price of maize.

These pressures seem unlikely to go away. The UBS team notes that the US may cease to be a maize exporter and become an importer instead. This and the other forces mean that food prices could remain high for several years, which would reverse the long-term trend for food to become cheaper in real terms.

Eventually we will presumably develop crops that are adapted to a hotter climate or need less water, just as we should be able to develop crops that are designed for fuel. At the moment we are taking crops that have been developed over a century or more for food use and then converting them into fuel. It is unsurprising this should be inefficient and that is made worse by ill-designed US subsidies.

But it will take time to adapt. And if higher food prices serve as some sort of warning to us all, then maybe that will be all to the best. More practically, while it does not solve the global problem, home-grown vegetables do taste vastly better than the bought variety.

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