Ketchup, Pasta Sauce Prices Might Get More Expensive Due Climate Change, Here’s Why

California, the top producer of tomatoes, is reported to have been going through the worst drought in over 1,000 years.

The prices of pasta and tomato sauce, a Futurism report specified, may soon spike due to the record-breaking drought.

According to the head of the California Tomato Growers Association, Mike Montna, the world desperately needs rain.

He added, "we are getting to a point where we don't have inventory left" to keep fulfilling the market demand. Montana also said it is quite challenging to grow a tomato crop.

He continued explaining that farmers have also dealt with high inflation on top of the water crisis. This means higher fuel and the costs of fertilizer, reducing profit margins at a time when tomatoes are already in scarcity.

Impact of Severe Climate Change

California is not alone in terms of experiencing the impacts of severe climate change, ad it is not possible that there will be a prettier image any time soon.

A couple of months back, the study authors published in the Nature journal that specified that tomato production worldwide would decline due to warming temperatures. This is another example of a lot of ways humans adversely affect the Earth, as well as its environment.

Just this week, humans are causing the euthanasia of a "beloved, globe-trotting walrus," possibly making flooding in Sudan even more fatal, and it was learned that strip mining in Kentucky made the fatal floods in the area more severe.

Scarcity of Tomatoes

Bloomberg reported that California processing tomatoes' production has dropped "from the 2015 peak."

Specifically, the California crop was below the present production peak of a little over 14 million tons in 2015 for the last six years, and this year shapes up to continue the trend, the US Department of Agriculture data reveals. The industry is expecting the harvest this year to fall drop below the 11.7 million tons estimated by the USDA.

According to the sales and energy manager for Ingomar Packing Co., R. Greg Pruett, there are simply no adequate acres of processing tomatoes being planted in 2022 to guarantee that everybody is getting their complete supply.

Essentially, Ingomar Packing Co. is one of the biggest tomato processors in the world. Pruett explained that water is either very expensive or only unavailable at any cost.

Such pressures are being reflected in the processed products of Ingomar. Tomato prices, in particular, for clients of the firm, which sells as well, to some of the largest food brands in the United States, are up as much as 90 percent from a year ago. With inventories that drop to critically low levels, supply is not available for everyone.

Lack of Water

Lack of water shrinks the production in an area accountable for a quarter of the output of the world, which is affecting the prices of tomato-based products.

Gains in ketchup and tomato sauce are outpacing the increase in the US food inflation, which is at its highest in more than four decades, with drought, and higher agricultural inputs to blame.

Moreover, with California climate-change predictions calling for warmer and drier conditions, the outlook for farmers remains uncertain.

Related information about climate change impacting ketchup is shown on The Hindu's YouTube video below:

Check out more news and information on Climate Change in Science Times.