Monica Piccinini
24 November 2025
Most people in the UK have little idea that the meals on their plates are closely connected to extreme weather now sweeping Brazil. Yet, the UK imports more food from Brazil than any other country outside Europe.
This means that the food on British shelves is increasingly shaped by droughts, floods, and heatwaves that are now becoming the norm in Brazil.
According to a recent report by the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit, ECIU, almost two-fifths of the UK’s food is imported. Brazil is a major supplier of soybean, beef, chicken, coffee, sugar, and fruit, and it’s also one of the countries experiencing the fastest climate shifts.
Over the past two years, the Amazon has faced its worst drought in seven decades, the south has endured deadly floods that scientists say were made twice as likely by global warming, and extreme heat forced schools close for children’s safety.
These changes are harming the farms that supply so much of the UK’s food.
Gareth Redmond-King, international programme lead at the ECIU, said:
British families are already paying the price at the tills for climate extremes hitting both here and abroad. This year saw the UK’s second worst harvest on record.
The Amazon’s drought left boats stuck in mud, entire communities cut off, and forest areas dry enough to burn. Meanwhile, towns in southern Brazil were underwater, destroying crops and livestock almost overnight. Heat is rising across the country, with far more days now reaching dangerous temperatures.
These events are no longer exceptional. Dry seasons are longer, rainfall is becoming erratic, and forests are losing their natural ability to recycle moisture.
The result is a weaker, less stable climate system, one that affects not only Brazilians, but also thousands of people miles away, including UK consumers.
We depend on Brazil for coffee, sugar, oranges and tropical fruits – as well as a lot of soy to feed livestock grown in the UK. In addition to the threat from climate change, vast swathes of rainforest and other biomes have been cleared to grow some of these foods; this deforestation is itself a key driver of the climate change affecting the ability to produce these foods, mentioned Redmond-King.
A Global Witness analysis shows that, despite a 2021 law meant to clean up supply chains, UK shoppers are still buying products linked to deforestation.
The group found that recent imports of beef, soy and palm oil were tied to forest loss on a scale comparable to the size of cities like Newcastle, Liverpool or Cardiff.
The Environment Act was supposed to stop companies sourcing goods from illegally cleared land, but years later it still hasn’t been enacted because of repeated government delays, leaving the UK market open to “forest-risk” products linked to deforestation and human rights abuses.
Soy: Britain’s hidden connection to Brazil
Soy is the strongest link between UK diets and Brazilian farms. Nearly all soy imported to the UK is fed to animals, mainly chickens. In 2024, the UK imported £243m of soy from Brazil.
Brazilian soy production is now under pressure from long dry spells and extreme heat. Rivers used to move the crop have dropped so low that transports have slowed or stopped. Scientists say that every 10C of global warming is estimated to cut soy production by around 6%.
There’s also a much bigger danger: the Amazon’s long-term survival is at risk. Experts warn that if deforestation reaches 20-25%, the forest could tip into a state where it can no longer sustain itself; roughly 17% has already been lost.
This would change weather patterns across Brazil, making soy production even more unstable, and threatening the UK’s poultry industry.
There’s also a social, environmental, and health dimension to Brazil’s soy industry that often gets overlooked.
As Unearthed reports, the introduction of herbicide-resistant seeds reshaped the country’s soy sector, to the point where roughly 98% of today’s crop is believed to be genetically modified.
This rapid expansion hasn’t been without consequences, it has pushed soy farming into huge new areas, contributing to deforestation and sparking land disputes in regions like the Amazon and the Cerrado.
A daily habit at risk
Brazil supplies up to 35% of the UK’s green coffee beans. But coffee is highly sensitive to drought and heat. The 2023-24 drought in Brazil caused global prices to spike. By the time the shock reached the UK, supermarket coffee prices had risen more than 13%.
Millions of Britons’ morning cups are now at risk from a warming planet.
Forest loss on the menu
Beef and chicken imports connect UK shoppers directly to the forests under threat.
Cattle farming, the leading driver of Amazon deforestation, is responsible for around 80% of forest loss. High heat makes it harder for animals to survive, pushing ranchers into untouched forest areas.
The UK imports over 500,000 tonnes of Brazilian chicken each year. Because the chicken industry depends heavily on soy feed, this links British diets to the same environmental pressures affecting soy farming.
Crops at risk
Mangoes, melons, limes, papayas, and sugar that arrive in UK shops come from regions in Brazil now struggling with water shortages and heat. In the centre-south, dry conditions have cut sugar cane production, and northeastern fruit farmers are forced to use far more water to keep the crops alive.
The orange juice industry, which supplies more than 70% of global exports, is also under strain. Heat and disease have hit citrus trees across the country.
As a result, UK fruit juice prices are still about 30% higher than in 2022, and orange juice prices more than doubling since 2020.
What this means for the UK
Climate shocks in Brazil are already reflected in UK supermarkets. Food becomes more expensive when crops fail, supply chains become less reliable, and families on tight budgets are hit hardest.
Global supply chains also face more risks from plant diseases and poor harvests linked to hot weather. The UK’s dependence on food from places deeply affected by climate change makes the country more vulnerable than most people realise.
The UK climate change committee released its progress report and adaptation and it’s horrendous to look in there and see for food security, in this grid they have, they’ve got red and amber, and green, and when it comes to planning, and when it comes to actual action on adaptation, the planning for food security in the UK is red, it’s insufficient, the plans are not good enough.
There aren’t even metrics for us to understand how the threat to food security is happening, said Laurie Laybourn-Langton, associate fellow at the Chatham House sustainability accelerator during an Innovation Zero webinar last May.
A shared responsibility
The food we consume in the UK is now tied to Brazil’s forests, rivers, and farmland. When the Amazon dries, southern Brazil floods, or crops fail in the heat, the impacts don’t stay in Brazil. It travels. It influences what we can find in our supermarkets, what families can afford, and how reliable our supply chains truly are.
Climate change isn’t a distant worry anymore; it’s already shaping the price and availability of everyday meals. Understanding this connection, and choosing to act on it, means taking some of the pressure off vulnerable environments and helping to build a food system that can cope with the changes ahead.
Featured image: Dzmitry Skazau/Alamy
Monica Piccinini 