As the cost of natural gas soars and greenhouse temperatures fall, food prices will rise

Tomato plants growing in a commercial greenhouse

Higher prices and shortages are likely for fruit and vegetables and other produce from the glasshouses of Europe, where the heat has been turned down because of the steep inflation in natural gas prices.

In particular, the supply of these crops is likely to fall from the Netherlands, where an estimated 2.4 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year (about 8% of the country’s consumption of the fuel) is needed to heat 25,000 acres of high-yielding glasshouses, which help to make the country the world’s second-largest exporter of food, by value.