Every five to seven years or so, the temperature of the Pacific Ocean rises slightly off the coast of Peru, and the food industry is affected.
That triggers a global shift in weather patterns known as El Nino. Some places suffer droughts during an El Nino event. Others experience floods. The wind also changes during the El Nino phenomenon. The "trade winds," which blow east to west over the tropical Pacific, weaken. Even the fish in the sea are different in an El Nino year -- altering their swimming routes to adjust to the water temperature.
It's all a sort of a massive example of the Butterfly Effect in which that what is happening off the Peruvian coast is tied to temperature swings, thunderstorms and bizarre weather across the globe, leading to worldwide disruptions of agricultural patterns.
El Nino is Spanish for "the son." And predicting just when he'll return is the work of many meteorologists. Most of the folks in the weather-forecasting business think that 2014 is the year if the El Nino.
This can be either good or bad news for food companies, depending on where they're located and what crops they produce, process, and sell.
Here's a look at what the return of El Nino will likely mean for five global crops.
Soybeans
As a general rule, El Nino is good news for U.S. farmers. The shift in global weather tends to dump additional rain on the crop-growing regions of the country. Given the multi-year drought in much of the United States, some heavy rain would be welcome.
A recent study by Japanese scientists shows that during El Nino years soybean yields jumped 3.5% as rainfall patterns helped growers in both the U.S. and Brazil.
Corn
El Nino years tend to be pretty harsh on corn. Production fell 2.3% globally when "the son" returned.
But in the U.S., the peak rainfall from the weather phenomenon tends to coincide nicely with the growing cycle of corn. The result this year could be a much-needed boost in domestic corn output (which would, in turn, help lower feed costs and thus push meat prices lower).
The risk, however, is that El Nino rainfall could move well past optimal and into dangerous territory. The Eastern Corn Belt is particularly vulnerable to flooding after the heavy snowfalls of the winter.
Wheat
One of the more volatile crops in an El Nino year is wheat. Australia in particular is subject to drought conditions during El Nino. In any year that's bad news, but this year Australia is already suffering from a non-El Nino drought.
Wheat is Australia's largest grain crop, and the country exports the majority of its production. So a tough year for Australia's wheat producers can create shortages across the globe.
Global wheat output falls an average of 1.4% during El Nino years, according to the study by Japanese meteorologists.
Bananas
Among the folks most worried about an El Nino event in 2014 is Ole Schack Petersen, who runs global commercial refrigerated operations for Maersk, the world's largest container-ship company.
Petersen says that a decline in banana production in Colombia and Ecuador is a distinct possibility, and that there's simply not enough surplus production anywhere else on earth to keep markets supplied.
Given some of the wider threats to the world's banana crop, that comes as particularly troublesome news.
Sugar
There are few areas of the world where the effects of El Nino are more obvious than in India. On the subcontinent the global weather phenomenon tends to wreak havoc on India's monsoon season.
In an El Nino year in which monsoon rains fall less frequently than usual, or where the monsoon season arrives later than is customary, crops can be badly hurt. In India there is next-to-no modern irrigation. The monsoon rains are how farmers get water. Period.
The 2009 El Nino hit India badly, cutting the volume of numerous crops -- particularly sugar.
The resulting sugar shortfall was so bad that global sugar prices hit their highest levels in 30 years.
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