Essay by Eric Worrall
Except for Potatoes grown by farmers who know how to farm?
Accelerating Global Warming Could Reshape the Future of Global Potato Production
August 05, 2026 Source PotatoPro
Global warming is no longer just increasing it is speeding up. A new climate study suggests the Earth’s temperature has been rising faster since around 2015, raising fresh concerns for agriculture, including potato production, processing, and global supply chains.
Researchers at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), whose findings were published in Geophysical Research Letters, analyzed global temperature records after removing the effects of natural climate influences such as El Niño, volcanic eruptions, and changes in solar activity. They found that the Earth’s long-term warming rate has increased to around 0.35°C per decade over the past ten years, compared with just under 0.2°C per decade between 1970 and 2015. The trend was consistent across five independent global temperature datasets, with more than 98% statistical confidence, providing the strongest evidence to date that global warming itself is accelerating.
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Scientists have long projected that suitable potato-growing regions will gradually move toward higher latitudes and elevations as the climate warms. At the same time, many traditional potato- producing areas are expected to experience more frequent heat stress, forcing growers to adapt their production practices.
Hotter Weather Could Reduce Processing QualityClimate change presents challenges that go beyond lower yields.
Heat and drought stress can change how potato tubers develop and store carbohydrates. Under stressful growing conditions, some potato varieties accumulate higher levels of reducing sugars, which can produce darker fries and potato chips during frying through the Maillard reaction.
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Read more: https://www.potatopro.com/news/2026/accelerating-global-warming-could-reshape-future-global-potato-production
This kind of climate alarmist shooting from the hip by organisations which claim expertise is just sad.
Five minutes research would have revealed there are plenty of places where high quality potatoes are grown in hot climates, like Bundaberg in Australia (25º south).
The way Bundaberg farmers grow cold weather varieties is by practicing extreme early planting. Potatoes are sown in Fall, thrive in Bundaberg’s mild 60F winter, then mature in Spring. The potatoes are harvested before the summer heat kills them.
Somewhere between Bundaberg’s practice of planting in Fall and the sowing time in your area is a sowing time which could compensate for any plausible amount of global warming.
Potatoes are not in danger. Let’s hope the “experts” at Potatopro take this opportunity to educate themselves before embarrassing themselves by writing more ignorant climate articles.
Warning: Climate Scientists are endangered by Catastrophic Global Warming (Not happening)!
Especially Potato Headed Climate Scientists!
Could …. might ….
more PIK PUKE .
😉
You forgot “may”, Bob.
Winter! They just never thought of i
I love potatoes. Especially mashed with salt and butter (I have simple tastes.) My peasant ancestors lived on little else for decades and decades (like a lot of people I guess). A long time ago, in the Haut-Doubs region, people used to eat them with milk in a soup plate.
This is probably not the best time to admit that French fries are actually a Belgian invention. But I’m secure enough in my roots to make this (earth-shattering, I’ll admit) revelation.
Potatoes are life. One of these days, I really ought to read Tortilla Flat by Steinbeck.
This new alarmist article doesn’t strike me as much better than the others. To adapt a fairly popular saying: “Les médias mainstream produisent tellement de navets (turnips in english, where turnips is used figuratively to mean a work of very poor quality (usually an artistic one), que leurs rédactions sont devenues de vrais potagers.”
And I’m a guy from eastern France. I love turnips in a good pot-au-feu. But the ones cultivated by so many newsrooms pull off the remarkable feat of being both indigestible and and leaving you hungry for substance.
Well, Belgium is 40% French – really, 60% Dutch (Flemish).
I think that the US habit of referring to them as just “fries” neatly side-steps that problem.
I’m not sure the Walloons (French-speaking Belgians) would agree with you! That said, I think your comment would have prompted quite a few Flemish people to nod along with a rather satisfied look.
Potatoes are very versatile but still subject to Global Worming… Just ask the Worms!
Good one! It reminds me of those bags of potatoes forgotten in sheds or kitchens. Once the tubers have sprouted, they look like something straight out of The Thing!
In my youth, I survived on potato pancakes.
If only brussel sprouts were “at risk from climate change”. Hate brussel sprouts.
But noooooo. Everything people like is “at risk from climate change”.
Like apple pie? Too bad. “At risk from climate change”.
No-one likes Sprouts from Brussels. Nasty little cabbages!
I am assuming a sideways comment aimed at unelected bureaucrats from Brussels 😉
I will allow you to Assume as you see fit!
Some of us do like them, just not boiled. Sautéed is much better.
I like them roasted in the oven with a drizzle of olive oil. The outer leave get crispy and the insides get soft.
Not True,
I love fresh, crisp raw sprouts straight off the plant, or very lightly steamed with salted butter or garlic mayonnaise.
I hate the smell & won’t eat overcooked boiled sprouts (only good for pigswill).
Because eco-activists are against human life.
The inaugural issue of The Ecologist magazine called humans ‘parasites’.
Humor – a difficult concept.
— Lt. Saavik
I sometimes wonder if the real reason for any measured rise in temperature is related more to the area of the planet that has been urbanised compared to the non-developed land, still covered in plants.
I think it would be worth a quick look to create a chart showing the area that is urbanised and any temperature analysis with respect to time, let’s say the last 100 years. If I’m correct, then of course I will acknowledge that correlation is not causation but I’m sure that I could make a case that the materials on the ground in an urban area increase the thermal capture compared to a respiring forest or grass covered plain. I actually believe that the basis for my assumption has already been made in numerous papers covering the urban heat island effects, all I’d be advocating is that the increase in the area of these islands has a measurable effect on an average.
Sprawling cities and the exclusion of green land may be the cause of any measured rise. What would this do for the roll out of solar factories?
So where do I get my grant money from.
I published the results of two studies (both using California by county over time) showing that UHI is most of the reported GAST rise there in essay ‘When Data Isn’t’ in ebook Blowing Smoke. Of course, GAST itself is also a spurious concept since one should never average intensive quantities.
Did your paper include the area increase with respect to time?
If so…. can you provide a quick chart showing the ‘global’ temperature and the urban area, on the same chart wrt time.
Even if your data just shows California, it will work as a proxy for urban development, although at a likely higher rate than average across the globe.
California counties do not ever increase area size. The proportion of them urbanizing does. So yes.
Using Roy Spencer graphs of atmospheric temperature, we can see the effect of Hunga Tunga since 2022. A sulfur pause of 12 months followed by 3 years of h2o warming. Is this the acceleration being spoken of?
Urban structures take a 2 dimensional plot of land (dirt, rock, whatever) and replace it with a 3 dimensional structure (glass, steel, concrete, brick, aluminum, sometimes wood) that increases substantially the surface area exposed to the sun and the atmosphere. That long with the materials changes accounts for a lot of the UHI. More surface area exposed, greater heat capacity.. Add to it energy density.
Two fun factoids that PotatoPro and PIK could have, and for the sake of their already battered reputations should have, checked before the former echoed the latter published nonsense.
What are the number one and two potato producers in the entire world?
OOPS!
Bonus factoids. Russia ranks 4th, US ranks 5th. What country is 3rd?—Ukraine.
Extra credit factoid. Ukraine latitude range lies entirely north of India latitude range! What will supposedly climate endangered potatoes make of that? Inquiring minds want to know.
Thanks for the info. I expect it willl be ignored by those at PotatoPro.
PIK does not need no bloody facts. Their task is to keep us alarmed.
first one up on a google image search:
What is an Irish potatoThe potatoe is a native of the Andes of Peru and Bolivia. The potatoe and tomato were never seen in Europe untill being introduced from the “New World” along with many other so called exotic plants.
Italy loved the Tomato because it loved their climate, and Ireland loved the potatoe because it loved the irish climate
The fact that elevated CO2 is very beneficial for potatoes has been settled science among agronomists for over a century. This is a 1920 ❗️ Scientific American article about a study of the effects of elevated CO2 on many crops, including potatoes:
Gradenwitz A. “Carbonic Acid Gas to Fertilize the Air.” Scientific American, November 27, 1920. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican11271920-549
This is an illustration from that article:
All the studied crops benefited from elevated CO2, including potatoes.
Thousands of subsequent studies have confirmed and refined that result. The indispensable CO2 Science website catalogs many of those studies, here:
https://www.co2science.org/data/plant_growth/plantgrowth.php
All major crops have been studied, and they all benefit from elevated CO2, under at least some common growing conditions. The magnitude of the benefit varies, but most crops benefit quite dramatically. No crop has ever been discovered which is stunted or harmed in any way by CO2 elevated to any level which could plausibly be reached by burning recoverable fossil fuels.
Potatoes grow very well in a wide variety of climates.
A degree or two of temperature difference is inconsequential for the suitability of a climate for growing potatoes, and the 50% increase in atmospheric CO2 has been very beneficial for potato crops.
https://ourworldindata.org/crop-yields
I didn’t know potatoes were commercially grown in Florida, but it makes sense, similar climate to Bundaberg. Good for early season potatoes.
Maybe the simple folk of Bundaburg didn’t come up with the idea after all.
Did they actually invent that dark rum either?
Maybe I shouldn’t call them simple folk. ‘Simple’ is a long word and they may not understand. /s of course.
Ruskin FL, just south of Tampa was once referred to as the potato capital of the world. I live in Palm Coast FL, less than 30 minutes from Hastings FL, which has enormous potato farms. No shortage here.
Florida and Maine have a vast difference between Climate Zones as do Florida, Colorado, Idaho and Washington. Potatoes are very diverse in where they can grow…even globally
For the record: I had no trouble growing them in Alaska (Wrangel). I met people who told me they grow them on visits to Hawaii though I did not see the actual plants. I also have no trouble growing all I feel like where I live(Western Washington)
The potato was the first domesticated root vegetable in the region of modern-day southern Peru and extreme north-western Bolivia between 8000 and 5000 BC. Single origin, Grown all over the world. Now, also numerous cultivars thrive.
This must be one of the most ridiculous error of judgement published in New Scientist since perpetual motion machines were featured.
I’m in north central Texas—plant the seed potatoes usually in Feb and harvest late May, early June. Planted sweet potatoes probably mid to late April and pulled the first one out today. A good foot long and I’ll guess about 5 pounds. BTW it’s been over 100 every day since mid July when the rain stopped. Secrete is planting cool loving crops fall winter and early spring, heat loving crops late spring into early summer. Something will grow most all year round here. Doesn’t take a genius to figure that out.
All the crop scare stories are based on studies which assume no change in farming practices in response to changed conditions, when they are based on anything at all.
Why would they bother to assume anything?
So, assume no assumptions are needed?
Eric wrote, “…which assume no change in farming practices in response to changed conditions…”
True! Sometimes they even admit it, right out loud. That’s what “without considering… adaptations” means in this abstract:
And what sort of radical “adaptations” are required to adapt to rising temperatures? Well, in the American Midwest, farmers can adapt to 1°C warmer temperatures by planting about six days earlier. Oh, the horror!
Also, “without considering CO2 fertilization effects” means “while ignoring the large benefits.”
Source:
Wang, X., Zhao, C., Müller, C. et al. “Emergent constraint on crop yield response to warmer temperature from field experiments.” Nature Sustainability 3, 908–916. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-020-0569-7
That reminds me…
Besides timing of planting, there are:
The Incas in Peru managed to develop potatoes by selective breeding.
Many hundreds of varieties from Bolivia to Chile.
One metric I’ve noticed over the the years is the growth of greenhouse growing in the BC lower mainland–so I just checked some numbers. The area under greenhouse cover has grown from some 10’s of hectares in the late 1960’s to over 650 hectares today according to BC Department of Agriculture figures as assembled by Perplexity.
Could this be caused by a warming of climate? (Note: the coverings are not opaque, I see them daily.)
Len, you could visit a few or the trade association . . . https://bcgreenhouse.ca/
. . . and learn what they do and why. One thing is that the harvest season is extended. Duck Assist says: Greenhouse sweet peppers in British Columbia are grown year-round in tall greenhouses with a minimum gutter height of 3.9 metres, starting transplants in mid to late December and harvesting from late March through December.
Photos on web are colorful. Also, see:
https://www.miragenews.com/air-temperature-key-to-sweet-pepper-size-during-1627603/
Thanks, John, I’ll look them up. I did grow up on a farm in the Fraser Valley, and have a 20 X 50 greenhouse myself–and it’s not because the weather here is getting to be like it is in Imperial Valley.
TIP
The North Atlantic has had Tropical Storm Arthur and TS Bertha. Next will be Cristobal — not yet in sight. The next 5 weeks should bring a ramp-up to the peak of the season near the 10th of September. It is time to stock up on {climate threatened} popcorn.
So, to be clear, idiots that know nothing about farming/agriculture are claiming blahblahblahblah yet again. Got it.
A little paraphrase from Futurama : “Thank you for using Stop-and-Drop, World’s favorite suicide booth since 2030.”
The Inca had up to 3000 different varieties of potatoes specifically raised to take advantage of different micro climates based on elevation. I think we can deal with a little modest warming and not see a collapse in potato production.