This summer, buyers in France will be confronted with an unpleasant sight at the supermarkets: no mustard.
The condiment is in limited supply throughout the country owing to a scarcity of the mustard seeds required to make it.
There are now fewer mustard seeds accessible to growers due to a combination of factors including the drought in Canada, the low crop in France, and the conflict in Ukraine.
As a consequence, mustard prices in France have risen by 10%, and some stores are having difficulty restocking jars of the condiment.
Last year’s drought in Canada’s agricultural west, from where France buys much of its mustard seeds, reduced crop output throughout the nation.
Even while climate change isn’t to blame for all droughts, surplus heat in the sky is causing droughts to become worse.
Since the beginning of the industrial age, the globe’s temperature has already risen by nearly 1.2 degrees Celsius, and this trend will continue unless governments throughout the world drastically reduce emissions.
Three years running in France, the domestic mustard seed harvests have fallen short of expectations owing to rainy winters and chilly springs.
According to the managing director of La Reine de Dijon, France’s third-largest mustard producer, output is running 20% to 25% below average.
In January and February, he claimed, seeds could still be found, but their supply has since decreased.
“There’s not a soul in sight. Everything has been reserved, and procuring seeds is proving to be a challenge.”
Because of the invasion, French mustard seed producers had intended to import extra seeds from Russia or Ukraine, but this is no longer an option.
Many agricultural goods’ worldwide supply networks have been affected as a result of the conflict.
It has become more difficult for both Russia and the West to export food because of the conflict in Ukraine and Western sanctions on Russia.
The United Nations issued a dire warning earlier this week, saying that the invasion might trigger a worldwide food catastrophe that could endure for years.
And in the United Kingdom, stores were forced to restrict the number of cooking oil bottles consumers could purchase due to a shortage of sunflower oil from Ukraine.
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