Pacific Agriculture
in the Shadow of El Niño

El Niño is a weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean where winds push warmer-than-normal surface water to the Indian Ocean. When the wind becomes weaker, the ocean's warm water drifts back toward the west coast of South America. Thick clouds gather, heavy rain pours down, and cold-water fish slowly vanish from the waters off Ecuador and Peru.

The phenomenon tends to peak around Christmas, which is why local fishermen named it El Niño, which means "the Christ Child". Meanwhile, La Niña happens when ocean temperatures drop below normal and strong winds push warm water from east to west. El Niño and La Niña are two phases of the same recurring cycle and both have effects that can be felt globally.²

The 1997–98 El Niño remains the most damaging event on the satellite record for Pacific island nations.⁴ Water shortages, coral bleaching, disease outbreaks, and crop failures were among its effects. The problem that makes El Niño complicated is that no two nations feel the same effect. In the southern Pacific, nations such as Vanuatu, Fiji, and New Caledonia tend to experience a dry season from May to October during El Niño. While in the central and northern Pacific area, it can be the opposite. The rainfall intensity becomes heavier during the same period (and potentially experience a delayed drought). Geographic location, island elevation, and local climate patterns decide whether an island faces drought or flooding.⁵

As mentioned earlier, not every nation experiences drought. Kiribati and the Marshall Islands, for instance, actually receive heavier rainfall during El Niño. Reduced rainfall in some Pacific countries directly affects the main income of people who depend on the agricultural sector.

Drought recorded in Fiji caused sugarcane production to fall sharply and dragged GDP down by at least 1.3%. Not only that, the loss in the livestock sector amounted to around USD 7 million. Significant declines in agriculture were also recorded in other regions, such as Papua New Guinea. Around 1 million people, or 20% of the population, experienced food insecurity due to the failure of food crops.⁷

El Niño does not guarantee more tropical cyclones across the entire South Pacific in every season. Instead, it changes where favourable conditions for cyclone development occur.^{8 9} During El Niño, cyclone formation and tracks tend to shift eastward toward the central Pacific, changing which island countries are most exposed.^{10 11}

The chart below separates tropical depressions, tropical cyclones and severe tropical cyclones. It shows that seasonal totals and storm intensity can vary widely: a season with fewer recorded systems can still contain several severe cyclones.

This evidence shows how El Niño can increase losses in society and the economy. El Niño is not easy to understand because it affects many areas. But economists have found ways to measure how much it adds to current problems, and the numbers are not small.⁸

Climate change doesn't create El Niño. And El Niño is not new.^{13 14} But the world in 2026 is not the same as the world in 1998. El Niño events in the coming years may be far worse than those of 10 or 27 years ago. Sea levels are higher, the oceans are warmer and the margin for error is narrower.^{15 16}

Yet even our understanding of the damage El Niño causes is incomplete. In Pacific Island Countries and Territories, research on meteorological drought has improved. There is now better understanding of when and where rainfall decreases. But many impacts are still unclear, such as how long soils stay dry, when crops die, when groundwater becomes salty, and how drought and cyclones happen one after another. The region still does not have enough good data to fully understand drought across its islands and atolls. Our knowledge is made of fragments, while the unknown may be much larger.⁵

But who bears the cost is not in question. Pacific Island countries register the greatest negative impacts of climate change while contributing just 0.03% of the world's total greenhouse gas emissions.¹⁷

Their agriculture is rain-fed, grown on low-lying land, and deeply tied to cultural identity. It's how they survive and who they are. El Niño will come again. And again. Each time it does, the same question arises: will they be able to recover?

In Vanuatu and Solomon Islands, agriculture makes up more than 70% of total exports. One bad harvest season is not just a matter of food on the table, but a destabilization of national revenue. About three-quarters of workers in Papua New Guinea are in agriculture and forestry. In the Marshall Islands, 64% of the land is arable, but agriculture contributes just 1% of GDP. It feeds families. But when the harvest fails, there's no other income to fall back on.¹⁹

So when El Niño dries the ground, and the yams don't grow, it is not only hunger that follows. In Tuvalu, communities have long associated drought with divine punishment. It's a sign that leadership has failed, that something in the social order must be corrected. Chiefs step down and new leaders are called upon to bring rain.⁵ Yet some church leaders today push back on that verdict, insisting the fault lies not with God, but with those who broke what he made.²⁰ When the next El Niño comes, and the crops fail again, and the skies remain empty, who will they blame then?