As El Niño strengthens, Spain’s food chain faces risks abroad

El Niño is strengthening, and its effect on Spain may arrive through the global food chain rather than through dramatic weather in Spain itself. Rainfall shortfalls in producing regions, export decisions, shipping constraints and higher feed costs can all push pressure toward Spanish producers and consumers. That makes the threat economically relevant—but it does not amount to a confirmed nationwide supermarket price surge.

The risk that arrives from abroad

El Niño changes rainfall and temperature patterns across different parts of the world. Those changes can affect harvests, fishing conditions and transport routes. The consequences then travel through markets: a smaller crop can tighten supply, an export restriction can reduce availability, and a feed shortage can raise production costs for livestock and aquaculture.

That chain is why Spain can be exposed even when the most important weather disruption happens thousands of miles away. Imported rice competes with Spanish production, while global commodity and feed markets connect local businesses to decisions made in exporting countries.

El Niño has entered a high-risk phase

NOAA’s September 10 diagnostic said El Niño was strengthening. Sea-surface temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific were more than 3.0°C above the reference average, and the Niño-3.4 index reached +1.8°C in August 2026.

NOAA also assigned a 75% chance that the October–December 2026 period would meet its threshold for a historic event. In that forecast, “historic” means a three-month relative Oceanic Niño Index, or RONI, of at least +2.5°C. The greater-than-90% figure describes the probability of a very strong event during Northern Hemisphere fall and winter 2026–27; it is a forecast, not a completed outcome.

The distinction matters for food prices. Climate risk is not the same thing as an automatic rise at the checkout. Between the ocean signal and a Spanish grocery bill sit harvest results, inventories, trade policy, freight costs, processors, retailers and consumer demand. Any one of those links can soften or intensify the effect.

India holds a key part of the rice story

India matters because its production and export decisions can change the amount of rice available to international buyers. The 2023 episode is a useful warning: India’s prohibition on non-basmati white-rice exports was identified as a major driver of the resulting rice-price shock, rather than El Niño alone.

That example turns climate into only one piece of the puzzle. A poor monsoon can tighten supply, but an exporter’s policy determines how much of that pressure reaches the world market. Conversely, large inventories and open trade can act as a buffer when weather conditions deteriorate.

Andhra Pradesh was reported to have received 44% less rainfall than normal, adding a regional production risk to the wider El Niño picture. The effect on Spanish shoppers would depend on what happens next in Indian harvests, exports and international prices—not on the rainfall figure by itself.

Sevilla is planting again while storage remains a problem

Spain’s own rice sector is entering this risk period with a mixed picture. Sevilla reportedly planted all 36,500 hectares allocated to rice in 2026, the second consecutive year in which the full area was planted. In 2023, those hectares were not planted.

At the same time, 40% of the previous harvest reportedly remained in silos. That points to weak demand or limited market absorption at the time of the report. It also shows why Spanish exposure cannot be reduced to a simple “bad weather equals higher prices” formula: local acreage, inventories and competition from imported indica rice matter too.

Spain’s Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food maintains weekly monitoring of rice prices in Spanish, European and international markets. That monitoring provides the relevant market lens as international conditions develop.

Rice is not the only route

Historical analysis by the European Central Bank found that a normal El Niño tended to raise real global commodity-price inflation by around 3% for six to 12 months. A transition from a normal to a strong event was associated with a peak increase of up to 9% in global food-commodity prices after 16 months.

Those figures describe historical global estimates, not a forecast for Spanish retail prices. They do, however, explain why the transmission chain deserves attention beyond rice.

Sugar and vegetable oils are globally traded commodities whose prices can respond to harvest conditions in major producing regions. Coffee, fruit and cocoa are also exposed to weather-driven production changes. A disruption does not need to reach Spain’s fields directly to affect processors, importers or food manufacturers operating there.

Feed creates another pathway. Peru’s anchoveta fishery supplies an important input for fishmeal, which is used in aquaculture and animal-feed chains. Official Peruvian monitoring has documented low-catch and closure-related conditions. If availability tightens, feed costs can move through livestock and aquaculture markets, although the effect on Spanish consumer prices would depend on the size and duration of the disruption.

The practical question is therefore not whether El Niño will produce one uniform price shock. It is whether several pressures—weather, trade policy, inventories, transport and feed—arrive together strongly enough to overcome the buffers in each market. For Spain, rice currently offers the clearest example of both sides of that equation: international exposure on one side, and domestic planting and stored supply on the other.