The Food and Agriculture Organization warns that a strong El Niño expected to begin within weeks threatens staple-crop harvests across South and Southeast Asia, from Pakistan and India through Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia. The World Meteorological Organization forecasts a stronger-than-usual cycle. FAO and the World Food Programme have launched a joint appeal for USD 202 million to protect 8.8 million people in 22 high-risk countries before harvests fail.
FAO’s analysis flags regions where the chance of agricultural drought exceeds 50 per cent over the coming months. The agency says this El Niño arrives on a warmer planet than any before it, and that the difference will show in the harvest.
This El Niño is not like the last one. The planet underneath it is warmer. The World Meteorological Organization reports that 2025 global mean temperature was forecast to sit around 1.4°C above the 1850–1900 baseline, the warmest decade on record. An El Niño now lands on top of that heat, not beside it.
That is the point Jorge Alvar-Beltrán, a Natural Resources Officer at the FAO, makes plainly. “This isn’t like previous El Niños,” he said. “The planet is much warmer today, and with conflict and food insecurity widespread, this new phase will hit hardest in places that are already vulnerable and have limited coping capacity.”
The agency expects the cycle to begin within weeks. It runs through the monsoon and the planting season across Asia’s rice and maize belts. The question is no longer whether the drought risk exists. It is who absorbs the loss, and whether anyone acts before the crops do.
The warming baseline does the damage
The FAO’s risk map is built on measurement, not guesswork. Its Agricultural Stress Index System draws on 41 years of satellite data on vegetation health to estimate the odds of agricultural drought. Anywhere the probability passes 50 per cent is flagged as high risk. For the coming El Niño months, that line is crossed across parts of South and Southeast Asia, the Sahel, Southern Africa and Central America.
In Asia the exposed zone runs a long arc. It reaches from Pakistan and India through Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and Timor-Leste. El Niño tends to weaken India’s summer monsoon, and a weak monsoon stresses rainfed rice and maize at the exact point in their growth when they need water most. During the 2015 event, maize and rice output fell in major producing countries, and prices rose.
Here is the link worth stating cleanly. Western demand for rice, palm oil, coffee and animal-feed maize ties directly into these breadbaskets, and the emissions that raised the baseline temperature came mainly from wealthy economies. When El Niño cuts yields, buyers compete for scarcer supply, which can push intensified production elsewhere onto already water-stressed land. Maximo Torero, FAO’s chief economist, warns that climate shocks like El Niño are major drivers of cereal price spikes, and that import-dependent countries face the sharpest food-security risk.
The 2015–16 cycle is the measured precedent. It affected an estimated 60 million people and required roughly USD 5 billion in aid across 23 countries. What is less clear is whether early money can change that arithmetic this time.
The money arrives after the harvest fails
Several governments are not waiting. India has widened crop insurance and contingency irrigation under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana. Thailand has funded drought-resilient rice strains and on-farm water storage. Vietnam is upgrading irrigation and salt-control works in the Mekong Delta, and the Philippines has stood up El Niño task forces for water rationing.
The trouble is scale. Budgets and on-the-ground capacity lag well behind the projected losses. Arif Husain, chief economist at the World Food Programme, notes that early, climate-informed assistance is more cost-effective than late response, and can cut food insecurity sharply if it lands before the peak. The FAO and WFP appeal for USD 202 million is built on that logic.
That logic has a documented opposing pressure. Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development, argues that South Asian smallholders bear the brunt of these droughts while contributing little to global emissions, and that promised adaptation finance keeps falling short. Under the Glasgow Climate Pact, developed countries pledged to roughly double adaptation finance to about USD 40 billion a year by 2025.
So the warning resolves into a single, unequal fact. The heat that makes this El Niño worse was generated largely in rich countries, and the harvest it threatens feeds, and is sold to, the world. The bill, for now, is split between the farmer who loses first and the donor who pays last.
Beyond the headline
The bigger picture
This warning is part of a shift in which short-term climate swings now sit on top of long-term warming, turning cyclical shocks into compounding crises for food systems. As baselines rise and rainfall extremes intensify, Asia’s role as a reliable supplier of cheap staples grows less certain, exposing how much the world depends on a few climate-sensitive breadbaskets.
The human cost
Behind the probability maps are households that have already lived through several seasons of erratic rain and price swings. Another failed monsoon can mean pulling children from school, moving to informal city jobs, or selling land built up over generations. Women and landless laborers often see the steepest drops in food and income.
The response gap
Anticipatory action is advancing, and several governments are updating drought plans, but the pace stays far below what repeated strong El Niños demand. Money tends to arrive after harvests fail, and safety nets rarely reach every exposed smallholder. The gap between sophisticated early warning and timely ground-level help is where food crises escalate.
Tracking the risk before the next harvest
With a strong El Niño expected to begin within weeks and run through the planting season, the people most exposed to its price and supply effects can act on specific signals now.
- Import-dependent food buyers and procurement teams
Review the FAO Agricultural Stress Index System maps to see which Asian and African regions supplying your staples face the highest drought odds over the coming harvest cycle. India’s Deccan plateau and parts of mainland Southeast Asia are already flagged above the 50 per cent threshold.
- Western taxpayers and philanthropic funders
Track WFP and national appeals for El Niño anticipatory action through official UN and foreign ministry sites, which detail planned interventions and financing gaps. The current FAO–WFP appeal for USD 202 million sets a clear, near-term benchmark for what is being asked and from whom.
- Regional food-security and supply-chain analysts
Watch the next monthly WMO El Niño update for central and eastern Pacific sea-surface readings. If the Niño3.4 anomaly holds above +1.5°C through the monsoon, expect deeper agricultural drought and steeper price effects; an earlier weakening would moderate the shock. The overlap with El Niño and the rice supply risk across Southeast Asia is worth monitoring closely.
Explainer
- FAO
- The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, founded in 1945, leads global efforts on food security and agriculture. It produces the analysis and warnings that governments and aid agencies use to plan for shocks like drought. Its monthly Food Price Index is one of the most closely watched gauges of cereal market stress worldwide.
- Agricultural Stress Index System
- A satellite-based FAO tool, known as ASIS, that estimates the probability of agricultural drought from vegetation health data. It draws on 41 years of imagery to flag cropland where drought risk passes 50 per cent. Its readings let analysts compare a developing season against four decades of historical conditions before any crop loss is visible on the ground.
- El Niño
- A recurring warming of the central and eastern tropical Pacific that shifts rainfall patterns worldwide. It often weakens the South Asian summer monsoon and dries out parts of Southeast Asia during key growing months. The current cycle is the first strong El Niño to develop after a year of record global sea-surface temperatures.
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