Food and Agriculture organisation (FAO)
This report constitutes a further step towards bridging persistent knowledge gaps and fostering a better understanding of how agriculture is affected by disasters. Their growing frequency and intensity, along with the systemic nature of risk, are jeopardizing our agri-food systems.
– QU Dongyu, (Director-General), – FAO of United Nations
The Food and Agriculture organisation (FAO) released a report that shows that the increasing frequencies and intensities of extreme weather disasters such as floods, droughts and megafires as a result of climate change is having a devastating effect on food security and livelihoods.
The report highlights the need for stronger disaster risk reduction policies and intensified efforts to build resilience to the adverse impacts of climate change to ensure agriculture’s crucial role in achieving a sustainable future. Compared the 1970’s and 1980’s, the occurrence of natural disasters now days are more than three times more as a result of our warming climate. Agriculture absorbs the disproportionate share of 63% of impact from disasters, with the least developed countries (LDCs) and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) bearing the major brunt of these disasters.
Agriculture, Disaster Risk Reduction, Food security
The report identifies drought as the single greatest culprit of agricultural production loss, followed by floods, storms, pests and diseases, and wildfires. Over 34% of crop and livestock production loss in LDCs and LMICs is traced to drought, costing the sector USD 37 billion overall. Drought impacts agriculture almost exclusively. The sector sustains 82% of all drought impact, compared to 18% in all other sectors. Between 2008 and 2018, the impacts of natural disasters cost the agricultural sectors of developing country economies over USD 108 billion in damaged or lost crop and livestock production. Such damage can be particularly detrimental to livelihoods of smallholder and subsistence farmers, pastoralists, and fishers.
| The new decade opened with the COVID-19 pandemic, huge locust swarms worsening conditions for 42 million people already facing acute food insecurity, and a record-breaking 30 named storms |
Over the analysed period, Asia was the most hard-hit region, with overall economic losses adding up to a staggering USD 49 billion, followed by Africa at USD 30 billion, and Latin America and Caribbean at USD 29 billion. Crop and livestock pests, diseases and infestations have also become an important stressor for the sector. Such biological disasters caused nine percent of all crop and livestock production loss in the period from 2008 to 2018. The potential threat of disasters of this category was rendered evident in 2020 when huge swarms of desert locusts ravaged across the Greater Horn of Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and Southwest Asia, destroying crops and jeopardising food security. The FAO Director-General QU Dongyu ststed that upheaval set in motion by COVID-19 may push even more families and communities into deeper distress. Disaster impact is pervasive and requires immediate efforts to better assess and understand its dynamics, so that it may be reduced and managed in integrated and innovative ways. The urgency and importance of doing so have never been greater.
The report also shows that disasters also have an effect on food security and nutrition. It also converts economic losses into caloric and nutrition equivalents. For example, it estimates that crop and livestock production loss in LDCs and LMICs between 2008 and 2018 were equivalent to a loss of 6.9 trillion kilocalories per year. This equals the annual calorie intake of seven million adults. The report argues that if we invest in resilience and disaster risk reduction, especially data gathering and analysis for evidence-informed action, is of paramount importance to ensure agriculture’s crucial role in achieving a sustainable future. Countries must adopt a multi-hazard and multi-sectoral systemic risk management approach to anticipate, prevent, prepare for and respond to disaster risk in agriculture. Strategies need to integrate not only natural hazards, but also anthropogenic and biological threats, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and must be based on an understanding of the systemic nature and interdependencies of risks.
Compared the 1970’s and 1980’s, the occurrence of natural disasters now days are more than three times more as a result of our warming climate. Agriculture absorbs the disproportionate share of 63% of impact from disasters, with the least developed countries (LDCs) and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) bearing the major brunt of these disasters. Innovations such as remote sensing, geospatial information gathering, drones and disaster robotics, and machine learning are powerful new assessment and data gathering tools that have much to offer in the quest to reduce disaster risks in agriculture. In addition to efficient governance, it is crucial to promote public-private partnerships to address the urgent need for investment in reducing agriculture’s susceptibility to disasters and climate change.
Download full report from the website:
https://unfccc.int/news/climate-change-related-disasters-a-major-threat-to-food-security-fao
References of work:
chrome-extension://oemmndcbldboiebfnladdacbdfmadadm/http://www.fao.org/3/i5188e/i5188e.pdf
https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/chapter/chapter-5/
chrome-extension://oemmndcbldboiebfnladdacbdfmadadm/https://www.uncclearn.org/wp-content/uploads/library/a-i5188e.pdf
