How climate change is threatening our favourite Christmas foods

Millions of families around the globe will sit down to a Christmas meal on 25 December featuring time-honoured dishes like roast turkey and cranberry sauce. 

But some might notice that costs for these traditional foods are a little higher this year, or perhaps stock seems scarcer. 

Many key ingredients for a Christmas dinner have been hit by climate change seeing yields reduce or forcing farmers to introduce adaptations. 

Here’s how the climate is changing our festive meals. 

Turkeys are ‘stressed’ by rising temperatures

Turkey farms in the UK and the US have been struggling to contend with rising temperatures in recent years. 

Hotter summers in Britain have resulted in increasingly stressed birds. This makes the animals sweat more – causing them to lose weight and driving up the cost of the meat.

Prices for turkeys are also indirectly affected by soaring gas bills, which is making the running of incubators for chicks more expensive. 

In the US, wild turkey populations fell by around 18 per cent between 2014 and 2019, according to The Wildlife Society. 

Like in the UK, farmed turkeys are also suffering the heat – and feed prices are rising due to crop failures. 

Cranberries are ‘scalded’ by summer heat

In the US, cranberry production has been hit by warming temperatures. Steve Ward, a second-generation cranberry grower in Massachusetts, said farmers are having to adapt to a changing climate. 

The Massachusetts Cranberries, a group that advocates on behalf of the industry, said this may have led to a lower harvest this year.

“We have had some challenges with some of the hot weather and had one of the longest dry spells we have ever had,” Ward said. 

“We are having more 90-degree [32 degrees Celsius] days clumped together. The cranberry plants just don’t like that type of weather. Our average temperatures, especially at night, are higher. Cranberries need cooler temperatures at night.”

Hot summers result in ‘berry scalding’, which makes the fruit more susceptible to fungal diseases and causes it to rot, according to a report from the University of Wisconsin.

It also means less favourable conditions for insects like bees that pollinate the plants and more favourable conditions for pests like cranberry weevil, which damage the fruit. 

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Brussels sprouts yields are slashed by climate change

The UK’s Brussels sprouts production is similarly being threatened by climate change. Warming temperatures open the door to pests that can decimate or completely destroy a harvest. 

This happened in 2016, when ‘super-pest’ diamondback moths devastated sprouts crops, resulting in a loss of as much as 60 per cent for some farmers. 

Greater variations in temperature are also a problem for sprouts, with extreme weather in 2022 causing the least-favourite Christmas vegetables to be smaller. 

Chestnuts are vulnerable to heat and drought

Roasted chestnuts are a classic Christmas food across Europe and in the US. But soaring temperatures and drought are damaging harvests. 

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In Greece, the heat and lack of rainfall are preventing chestnuts from ripening and slashing yields by as much as 90 per cent.  

The country’s harvest is expected to fall to around 15,000 tonnes in 2024 – half the average of the past five years – according to research by the University of Thessaly.

It is a similar story in Spain, France and Portugal where climate change has also resulted in some of the warmest winters and summers on record. 

Scientists develop heat-resistant roast potatoes

If potatoes are a staple of your Christmas dinner, there’s finally some good news. 

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Scientists from the University of Illinois and the University of Essex have developed a heat-resistant variant that can produce 30 per cent more potatoes when under extreme stress. 

Even when hit by heatwaves, the crop adapted using a process called photorespiration flourishes, researchers found. 

The team hope the results will boost food security in the UK and elsewhere – and not just for Christmas.