Healthy Lifestyle Green and Sustainable Eating Top 10 Foods That Might Disappear If Temperatures Keep Rising Some of our favorite foods are crops we're in danger of losing due to climate change—or that may be forced to relocate to new, more hospitable climates. By Rowan Jacobsen Published on May 3, 2018 Trending Videos Close this video player Pictured: Red-Wine Hot Chocolate When people talk about climate change, it's often about rising temperatures and shrinking habitats. But one result that will have the biggest impact on our day-to-day lives is what hotter temperatures mean for food crops. Some of our favorite foods require a certain climate to grow-or, in the case of fish and shellfish, particular water conditions to thrive. Here are 10 things we're at risk of losing, or that may be forced to move to cooler climates. That could have devastating impacts on local economies, and even impact the way the food tastes. 1. Coffee As the tropics get warmer, coffee bushes become less productive and more susceptible to disease. By 2050, an estimated 50 percent of current coffee-producing land could be unusable. 2. Chocolate Cacao trees can take the heat, but they don't like the dryness that comes along with it. Some chocolate hot spots, like Indonesia and western Africa, are already seeing declines in yield. 3. Wine Too much heat for too long destroys the acidity of grapes. The resulting wine tastes "cooked." By the end of the century, many celebrated regions, such as Napa Valley, may be too hot to make great wine. 4. Apples Many apple varieties require a certain number of days of winter chill to produce fruit the following year. In the Northeast alone there are now 8 more frost-free days annually than a century ago. 5. Almonds California's almond crops (annually a $4 billion industry) survived the recent drought by pumping in groundwater, but if it recurs, expect almonds to get rarer-and much more expensive. 6. Corn Yields of our most productive crop are already declining because of the freakishly hot summers of late. That trend will continue. By century's end, production could drop by up to 50 percent. 7. Beans Other than a few desert stalwarts like the tepary, most varieties of beans hate heat. As global temperatures continue to rise, we could lose 50 percent of conventional bean crops by midcentury. 8. Oysters As carbon dioxide levels rise in the atmosphere, more gets absorbed by the oceans, which become increasingly acidic. That acid dissolves the calcium-based shells of bivalves like oysters. 9. Lobster Lobsters like cold water. And over the past few decades, their population has migrated northward. That's been great news for Maine lobstermen, but by 2100, the Gulf of Maine may be too warm for them. 10. Maple Syrup Sugar maple trees grow primarily in the Northeast, which by 2100 could have a climate similar to North Carolina's. The maples would have to move farther north for optimal sap production. Read On: How to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint with Food Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Tell us why! Other Submit