What Might Happen If El Nino Returns

February 21, 2014

Global cocoa prices have rallied to 2-1/2-year highs on worries El Nino could return in 2014, while other agricultural commodity markets could also be hit by the spectre of the weather anomaly.

El Nino – a warming of sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific – affects wind patterns and can trigger both floods and drought in different parts of the globe, curbing food supply.

The worst El Nino on record in 1997/98 was blamed for massive flooding along China’s Yangtze river that killed more than 1,500 people.

El Nino means “boy” in Spanish and was first used by anchovy fishermen in Ecuador and Peru in the 19th century.

Below are some of the key commodities that could be affected by its return.

GRAINS, OILSEEDS, LIVESTOCK
SOFT COMMODITIES

(Reporting by Lewa Pardomuan in Singapore, Ho Binh Minh in Hanoi, Apornrath Phoonphongphiphat in Bangkok, Anuradha Raghu in Kuala Lumpur, Yayat Supriatna in Jakarta, Colin Packham in Sydney, Peter Murphy in Bogota, Dominique Patton and Niu Shuping in Beijing, Chris Prentice and Marcy Nicholson in New York, Erik Dela Cruz in Manila, Ratnajyoti Dutta in Delhi and Karl Plume in Chicago; Editing by Joseph Radford)