Bananas and coffee in Northland might sound like a plus, but there are plenty of downsides, too. 

As the earth gets warmer, more parts of the country will be – and in some cases are already – warm enough to grow crops that were previously impossible to produce. North Island crops are moving southwards, and experts predict that more stuff will be able to grow in Aotearoa due to the warming temperature. 

Let’s say you want to grow fruit and veg in your backyard. What’s on the food forecast by mid-century? 

Banana, pineapple, papaya, sugar cane and coffee 

In Northland, growing tropical fruits and coffee will become less of an anomaly in a couple of decades. Northland is moving from a subtropical to a fully tropical climate (a climate with no sub-zero temperatures) with its annual average temperature increasing up to 1.25°C in most seasons by 2040. A frostless climate will enable these crops to grow.

Kiwifruit

About 90% of the country’s kiwifruit industry is based in the Bay of Plenty, which will soon be too warm for this crop to grow. Kiwifruit requires winter chilling to produce more flowers in spring which result in fruit. 

While kiwifruit becomes more difficult to grow in parts of the North Island, particularly in the upper and coastal areas, there will be more area overall in Aotearoa suited to kiwifruit production. We could see kiwifruit growing in places like Taranaki, Hawke’s Bay and Canterbury by 2050. 

Blueberries

Like kiwifruit, most of the North Island is predicted to become less suitable for blueberry while the central North Island and South Island become more suitable, especially for some varieties that also require the winter chill. To grow blueberries in the upper North Island, you would need varieties bred for heat tolerance and lower winter chill.

Avocado

According to New Zealand Avocado, all avocados sold in New Zealand are grown locally, mainly in Northland and the Bay of Plenty, and climate change will increase the country’s avocado real estate. Parts of the country such as Taranaki, Hawke’s Bay and Waikato will be suited to avocado growing due to reduced frost risk. 

Wine

Regions currently optimal for growing Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir in the North Island, including Gisborne and Hawke’s Bay, will become too hot. Meanwhile, most of the South Island will become more suitable, particularly in Canterbury and Otago. 

Apples

Apples will have a similar southward migration as wine grapes, moving away from Hawke’s Bay, Gisborne and Waikato to Central Otago, Nelson and possibly Taranaki. Apples will also be more prone to sunburn in Northern regions. 

So what’s the caveat?

Sustainable agronomy expert, Charles “Merf” Merfield, discusses the bigger picture – and it’s pretty darn bleak. “Climate change doesn’t just mean a warming climate,” he warns. “The killer here is predictability.” He says our current farming systems are not ready to take big blows, like that of Cyclone Gabrielle where expanses of crops were wiped out. 

And climate is just one part of a large equation. In September last year, an international team of scientists presented nine planetary boundaries that define a safe operating space for humanity and keep the earth in a Holocene-like state which it has been in since the end of the last ice age. Six boundaries have transgressed a safe operating space. 

Besides climate change, the threshold is breached for the amount of novel entities (synthetic chemicals) in the environment, the loss of biodiversity (biosphere integrity), land-system change through pursuits like deforestation, the overuse of freshwater, and the amount of phosphorus and nitrogen in the environment (biochemical flows). 

“They’re all one of the same fundamental crisis,” Merf says. A warming climate does mean we can grow kiwifruit in Canterbury, but not easily, given the effects of microplastics on soil function and reduced natural pest and disease control, to give just two examples. “We would need to have a kiwifruit system in Canterbury that’s going to be robust to going between really, really dry and really, really wet,” Merf says. 

So while we may be able to grow certain foods further south due to warmer temperatures, Merf says that to call this a good thing would be to miss  “the entire point that the whole planetary system is starting to become unstable.” 

And even though coffee will grow in Northland, central latitudes of the globe will keep getting hotter, and large portions of important coffee-producing nations like Brazil, Vietnam, Honduras and India will become unsuitable for growing, with extremely harsh working conditions where heat becomes lethal. 

So, coffee drinkers excited about local coffee production shouldn’t rejoice just yet. According to Merf, the impact of climate change on our food production systems is just “solid bad news”.