Arabfields, Said Ali, Specialist in Agricultural Policy and Economic Innovations in Asia — As the southern winter sets in across South America, global coffee and wheat markets are reeling under the weight of a persistent climate crisis. Arabica coffee prices have climbed more than 20% over the past six months, reaching around $2.80 per pound on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), while soft red winter wheat has crossed the $6 per bushel mark in Chicago. These dramatic increases are not the result of rampant speculation, but of an unrelenting reality: prolonged droughts, floods, and extreme heat waves ravaging South America’s producing regions. For the millions of farmers in the region, it is a sentence of precarious survival.

Brazil, the world’s coffee giant with nearly 40% of global arabica production, lies at the heart of this turmoil. Plantations in the states of São Paulo and Minas Gerais, traditionally fertile, endured a record drought this summer 2025, exacerbated by lingering El Niño effects. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), yields could drop 15 to 20% this season, forcing exporters to draw on already thin stockpiles.

“We haven’t seen such aridity since 2021,” testifies Maria Silva, a 52-year-old producer near the city of Campinas. “The coffee cherries dry out on the branches before harvest. My workers, on technical unemployment, watch their families go hungry.” Her story is not isolated: reports from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) indicate that more than 500,000 small-scale Brazilian farmers are at risk of bankruptcy, with a 30% increase in rural-to-urban migration to slums.

Beyond Brazil, Colombia – the world’s second-largest producer – faces unusually heavy rains in the Andes, triggering landslides that have swallowed thousands of hectares. Result: a 10% reduction in projected output, according to the Colombian government. On the markets, this double blow drives prices upward, affecting not only Western consumers – where an espresso could soon cost 10% more – but also processing industries in Asia and Europe.

If coffee carries Brazil’s aroma, wheat embodies the Argentine pampas, where production accounts for 5% of global supply. But 2025 marks a dark turning point. An exceptional heat wave in October, with temperatures exceeding 40°C in Buenos Aires province, accelerated ear maturation, reducing grain weight and protein content. The Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA) estimates a loss of 12 million tons, or a quarter of the expected harvest.

“Our fields, once golden, are now carpets of scorched straw,” laments Juan Ramirez, a 45-year-old grower in Rosario, Argentina’s wheat granary. “With runaway inflation and global prices that don’t cover our costs, we’re selling at a loss.” This crisis compounds Brazil’s, where regions in Paraná and Rio Grande do Sul – emerging wheat areas – suffer floods from the nascent La Niña, destroying 8% of plantings.

Globally, these South American climate shocks could drive wheat prices up 15% by the end of 2025, warns the World Bank in its latest food security report. For import-dependent countries like Egypt or Bangladesh, reliant on imports for 80% of their needs, this means soaring bread and staple prices, exacerbating social tensions in a still-fragile post-pandemic world.

South America, the planet’s agricultural lung, is paying a heavy toll. The region’s agricultural GDP, which represents 6% of the continental economy, could shrink by 2 to 3 percentage points in 2025, according to projections from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL). Governments are responding: Brazil has announced a 5 billion reais emergency fund for affected farmers, while Argentina negotiates IMF loans to stabilize its exports.

But beyond the numbers, it is people who suffer. Indigenous communities in the Amazon, already vulnerable, see their traditional lands converted to intensive monocultures, worsening deforestation. And women, who make up 60% of the informal agricultural workforce, are the first hit by job losses and food insecurity.

In the face of this storm, voices are rising for a pivot. Initiatives like Nestlé’s “Sustainable Coffee” program in Brazil incorporate drought-resistant varieties, while Argentine cooperatives experiment with drip irrigation funded by the European Union. Yet IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) experts insist: without drastic global emissions cuts, these crises will be merely the prologue to greater chaos.

For now, exchanges worldwide are on watch. Coffee and wheat are not mere commodities; they are the barometer of a warming planet, and of a South America that bends but does not break. For Silva and Ramirez, hope lies in international solidarity – and in our collective ability to turn crisis into a catalyst for change.