Drought, deluge and disease: How El Niño is reshaping the global potato outlook

Where the 2026–27 climate shock is already being felt—and where the crop is most exposed.

Research current to September 2, 2026

By Lukie Pieterse, Editor/Publisher of Potato News Today

El Niño is no longer merely a possibility on seasonal forecast charts. It is present, strengthening quickly, and increasingly likely to become a very strong event during the Northern Hemisphere autumn and winter of 2026–27.

For the world’s potato industry, however, the consequences will not arrive as one uniform global shock. They will be scattered across seasons and regions: drought in some production zones, excessive rain in others, and in still others a subtler legacy of low winter snowpack, constrained irrigation water or heightened disease pressure months after the Pacific event reaches its peak.

That distinction matters. Extreme weather is already damaging potato crops in several regions, especially Europe, but it would be scientifically careless to label every drought, flood or heatwave an “El Niño impact”. The tropical Pacific changes the odds of particular weather patterns; it does not dictate the weather in every field. Local circulation, the Indian Ocean Dipole, the North Atlantic Oscillation, soil moisture, water infrastructure and long-term human-caused warming can reinforce—or overwhelm—the ENSO signal.

The most defensible conclusion from the evidence available at the end of August 2026 is therefore a measured one: El Niño is already contributing to serious agricultural stress in parts of India and Peru, while official forecasts point to rising potato-production risks across Southern Africa, Australia, New Zealand, East Africa and the Pacific Northwest of North America. Europe’s 2026 potato losses are real and severe, but direct attribution to El Niño remains less certain.

A powerful event is taking shape

NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center said on 13 August that El Niño was strengthening and had a greater than 90% chance of becoming a very strong event during the Northern Hemisphere autumn and winter of 2026–27. NOAA expected it to persist through Northern Hemisphere spring 2027. Its probabilistic outlook went further: for October–December 2026, it assigned a 69% chance that the event would exceed the strength of previous El Niños in the agency’s record dating to 1950.

The World Meteorological Organization has also described a classic strong-El Niño rainfall footprint. Its July outlook favoured wetter-than-normal conditions in the Greater Horn of Africa, southern Europe, parts of western North America south of 45°N and southeastern South America, while favouring dryness over the Indian subcontinent, southern and eastern Australia, northern Europe, parts of the Caribbean and Central America, and northwestern South America.

These are probabilities, not promises. Even a very strong oceanic El Niño cannot be translated directly into a yield forecast for an individual potato region. The location and timing of heat or rain relative to emergence, tuber initiation, bulking, vine kill and harvest will determine much of the actual damage.

Why potato is unusually exposed

Potato is a cool-season crop with a relatively shallow root system and limited tolerance for prolonged soil-moisture deficits. A peer-reviewed review of potato stress physiology reports that temperatures above about 25°C can delay tuberisation. Heat can divert assimilates towards foliage, raise respiration and shorten the effective bulking period. When heat and drought occur together, the result may be reduced tuber set, smaller size profiles, lower marketable yield and physiological disorders.

Too much water creates a different hazard. Saturated soils restrict oxygen around the roots and tubers, interfere with field operations and increase the risk of tuber breakdown. Cool, persistently damp weather also favours late blight caused by Phytophthora infestans. El Niño therefore threatens potatoes through opposite pathways: insufficient water and excessive heat in one region, waterlogging and disease-conducive humidity in another.

The crop’s market exposure extends beyond tonnes per hectare. A season can produce respectable gross tonnage yet still create shortages of the correct size, dry matter, specific gravity or fry colour for processors and packers. Irrigation and crop-protection costs may rise even where yield losses are contained, while abrupt swings between drought and rain can complicate harvest and storage management.

India: the first major potato warning may be stored in the soil

India is providing one of the clearest current examples of an El Niño-linked agricultural disturbance. Reuters reported on 24 August that the 2026 southwest monsoon was running 13% below normal and was expected to finish about 15% below the long-term average—the weakest in nearly two decades. June rainfall was reported 35.4% below average, and the India Meteorological Department expected the deficit to deepen in September as El Niño strengthened.

The immediate damage is concentrated in summer-sown crops. For potatoes, the larger concern lies just ahead. Much of India’s main crop is planted after the monsoon, so depleted soil moisture, weaker reservoir recharge and pressure on groundwater can carry the monsoon deficit into the winter potato season. If unusually warm conditions persist into planting and early crop development, irrigation demand could increase just when water buffers are less secure.

There is not yet a verified national potato-loss estimate attributable to the 2026 El Niño. Any claim that India’s coming potato crop has already been reduced would be premature. What can be said is that the moisture foundation on which the crop depends has weakened in many regions, and the risk will be determined by autumn temperatures, post-monsoon rainfall and irrigation availability.

The Andes: flood on the coast, drought in potato country

Peru illustrates the two-sided nature of El Niño particularly sharply. On 27 August, Reuters reported that national authorities expected the phenomenon to intensify from November and potentially affect about 1.2 million people. Officials identified flooding and mudslide risks in northern agricultural provinces while also warning that El Niño could bring drought to the southern Andes. The government had declared emergencies in hundreds of districts for rainfall and flooding risk and in hundreds more for water shortages.

For the potato economy, the southern-Andean drought signal is the critical one to watch. Rainfed smallholders and native-potato systems at altitude have less capacity to absorb a failed or erratic rainy season than large irrigated operations. Reduced planting, weak crop establishment and pressure on seed reserves can turn one bad season into a multi-year livelihood problem. Conversely, intense rain can isolate producing communities, erode fields and disrupt movement of seed and ware potatoes even where crops themselves escape the worst damage.

The evidence does not yet justify a national Peruvian potato-production forecast. It does justify a high level of concern, particularly because the warning comes before the main impacts are expected and because national authorities are already acting on both flood and water-shortage risks.

East Africa: more rain may mean more potatoes—but also more blight

In the Greater Horn of Africa, El Niño is expected to tilt the risk towards excessive rather than deficient rainfall during the important October–December 2026 season. The IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Centre forecast wetter-than-normal conditions across much of the region and a 90% probability of enhanced rainfall over southern Ethiopia, central-to-southern Somalia and northeastern Kenya. Parts of central Kenya, the Lake Victoria Basin, Burundi, western Rwanda and western Tanzania were given a high chance of exceeding 400 millimetres during the season.

For potato growers in Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda and neighbouring highlands, an early and well-distributed rainy season could help planting and crop establishment. But persistent rainfall would raise waterlogging, erosion and access problems and could create extended infection periods for late blight. Kenya’s National Potato Council has already issued practical guidance in anticipation of El Niño rains, highlighting drainage, raised ridges, field scouting and timely disease management.

The outcome will depend on distribution, not merely the seasonal total. Four hundred millimetres delivered steadily can support production; the same amount concentrated into destructive events can wash away seed, fertiliser and topsoil. East Africa may consequently see some of the widest variation between farms and districts during this El Niño.

Southern Africa: a familiar drought threat returns

Southern Africa carries one of the strongest and most consistent El Niño drought signals. The Southern African Development Community’s late-August seasonal outlook favoured drier conditions across much of the region during the 2026–27 rainy season, with El Niño already established and expected to reach strong to very strong intensity around October–December.

The warning lands only a few seasons after the 2023–24 El Niño drought caused major crop losses and a regional food-security emergency. Potatoes are not the region’s dominant staple, and the evidence now available does not support a quantified regional potato-loss forecast. Nevertheless, the production pathway is clear: reduced rainfall raises irrigation demand, lowers streamflow and dam recharge, and increases competition for water and electricity. Rainfed and small-scale growers face the greatest direct exposure, while commercial irrigated producers may encounter higher pumping costs and tighter water allocations.

South Africa enters the season with a partial buffer. Exceptionally good 2025–26 rains improved soil moisture and dam levels in many areas. That reduces immediate vulnerability but does not remove it, especially if a strong event suppresses rainfall through the heart of the summer production season.

Australia and New Zealand: spring and summer will be the test

Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology has confirmed El Niño conditions and notes that the phenomenon typically reduces rainfall and raises daytime temperatures across parts of eastern and southern Australia. For potato districts in Tasmania, Victoria and South Australia, the practical concerns are water availability, hot spells during tuber initiation and bulking, and the cost of maintaining irrigation under rising evaporative demand.

Australia’s own climate agency stresses that every event differs and that other drivers, including the Indian Ocean Dipole and Southern Annular Mode, can alter the outcome. A dry risk is therefore not the same as a drought forecast for every potato-growing district.

New Zealand’s outlook is similarly nuanced. Earth Sciences New Zealand says El Niño generally strengthens westerly winds and can bring drier conditions to northern and eastern areas, but also notes that ENSO explains less than 25% of year-to-year seasonal rainfall and temperature variance at most New Zealand locations. Potatoes New Zealand has begun directing growers to ENSO and seasonal forecast resources as the event takes hold. Canterbury and other eastern production zones merit close attention through spring and summer, but local rainfall, irrigation storage and wind exposure will decide the crop response.

North America: the larger threat may arrive with the 2027 irrigation season

For most of the United States and Canada, El Niño’s strongest and most reliable effects emerge in autumn and winter—after much of the 2026 potato crop has been harvested. That makes immediate attribution difficult. Canada’s July drought assessment found that 23% of the country’s agricultural landscape was abnormally dry or in moderate-to-severe drought, but those conditions cannot simply be assigned to an El Niño that was still developing.

The more consequential potato signal may be the winter water balance. The USDA Northwest Climate Hub says El Niño winters in Idaho, Oregon and Washington are usually warmer and drier, with less precipitation falling as snow. Reduced snowpack and earlier melt can translate into lower summer runoff and tighter water availability in the following growing season. For the irrigated potato systems of the Columbia Basin and Snake River Plain, that makes the 2026–27 winter an important precursor to the 2027 crop.

In northern parts of the United States and much of Canada, the broad tendency is towards a warmer winter, while the southern United States is more likely to be wetter. These tendencies do not produce a direct national potato-yield forecast. Their value lies in early water planning: reservoir operations, snowpack monitoring, irrigation allocation and planting decisions can begin months before tuber initiation.

Europe: severe losses, but an attribution trap

Europe is already experiencing some of the world’s clearest potato damage in 2026. The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre reported on 24 August that persistent heat and exceptional water deficits had substantially worsened crop prospects across western and much of central Europe. France’s growers’ association UNPT projected that the country’s main potato crop could fall 23% from 2025 after exceptionally hot and dry weather, according to Reuters. England has also endured record-low rainfall and widespread drought, with irrigation supplies under growing pressure.

These facts are not in dispute. The cause requires more care. El Niño’s influence on European weather is indirect and substantially less reliable than its influence in the tropics, Southern Africa or Australia. The Met Office expects the strengthening event to increase the likelihood of wetter and stormier conditions in northwestern Europe during autumn and early winter—almost the opposite of the hot, dry summer conditions that damaged the current crop.

Europe’s 2026 potato shortfall should therefore be described as a heat-and-drought loss occurring as El Niño strengthened, not automatically as a loss caused by El Niño. Long-term warming, persistent regional pressure patterns, depleted soil moisture and local water restrictions are all part of the explanation. The distinction is more than academic: misdiagnosing the driver can lead the industry to prepare for the wrong hazard. Europe may move from drought-stressed crops into a wet, difficult harvest and stormier storage season.

China and Southeast Asia: risks are emerging, but potato evidence remains thin

China’s National Climate Centre expects El Niño to peak in autumn and winter, with increased rainfall possible south of the Yangtze and drought risk in other areas. China was already dealing with damaging heat and flooding in important agricultural provinces during July and August, although the clearest reported impacts were on maize, soybeans, cotton and rice rather than potatoes.

Across Southeast Asia, the GEOGLAM Crop Monitor reported dry and hot conditions affecting parts of Cambodia, Thailand and southern Viet Nam, and warned that El Niño-related dryness was expected to coincide with Indonesia’s peak dry season. Potato production is geographically smaller and often concentrated in highland systems, so national cereal and rice outlooks cannot be translated directly into potato losses. The relevant risks are local: spring and irrigation water, heat at lower elevations, fire and transport disruption, and intense rainfall where circulation patterns reverse.

What the industry should watch next

The decisive period will run from September 2026 into the first half of 2027. Five indicators deserve particular attention:

the timing and distribution of India’s remaining monsoon and post-monsoon rainfall;
drought development during Southern Africa’s October–March production season;
spring and summer rainfall, heat and irrigation storage in Australia and New Zealand;
rainfall intensity and late-blight pressure during East Africa’s October–December season; and
winter snowpack and reservoir recharge in the Pacific Northwest and western Canada.

Across regions, the sensible response is not panic planting or speculative market claims. It is disciplined risk management: update seasonal forecasts frequently; audit water supply before fixing planted area; secure seed health and storage capacity; maintain drainage as well as irrigation; intensify disease scouting where wetness is forecast; and keep processors and buyers informed about likely size and quality shifts before tonnage estimates harden.

El Niño does not guarantee a global potato shortage. Major regions may experience opposite conditions, and favourable production in one could partly offset losses in another. But a very strong event increases the possibility that several important production systems will be stressed in different ways within the same marketing year. For an industry accustomed to thinking field by field and season by season, the challenge is to recognise the common Pacific driver without pretending that it writes the same weather story everywhere.