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The Impact of Disasters on Agriculture and Food Security 2023

Avoiding and reducing losses through investment in resilience









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Last update 06/05/2024


FAO. 2023. The Impact of Disasters on Agriculture and Food Security 2023 – Avoiding and reducing losses through investment in resilience. Rome. 




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    Booklet
    In brief to the Impact of Disasters on Agriculture and Food Security 2023
    Avoiding and reducing losses through investment in resilience
    2023
    This report summarizes the findings of the flagship report The Impact of Disasters on Agriculture and Food Security 2023. Disasters are resulting in unprecedented levels of destruction across the world. These shocks and disruptions affect the functioning and sustainability of agricultural production and threaten the livelihoods of millions of people reliant on agrifood systems.Reducing the impact of disasters in agriculture requires a better understanding of the extent to which these events produce negative impacts in agriculture and necessitates an investigation into the underlying risks that make agriculture vulnerable to the effects of disasters.The FAO flagship report on ‘The Impact of Disasters on Agriculture and Food Security’ provides a timely and comprehensive overview of how disasters are affecting agriculture and food security around the world. Building on previous work of the FAO on this topic, the report estimates losses caused by disasters on agricultural production over the past three decades and delves into the diverse threats and impacts affecting the crops, livestock, forestry, and fisheries and aquaculture subsectors. It analyzes the complex interplay of underlying risks, such as climate change, pandemics, epidemics and armed conflicts, and how they drive disaster risk in agriculture and agrifood systems at large.The report provides examples of actions and strategies for investing in resilience and proactively addressing risks in agriculture. It demonstrates ways to mainstream disaster risk into agricultural practices and policies and calls for a deeper understanding of the context in which these solutions are implemented.
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    Book (stand-alone)
    Building resilience to climate change-related and other disasters in Ethiopia
    Challenges, lessons and the way forward
    2022
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    Ethiopia is exposed to a wide range of disasters associated with the country’s extensive dependence on rainfed subsistence agriculture, climate change, resource degradation, diverse geoclimatic and socio-economic conditions and conflicts. Drought and floods are the major challenges, but a number of other threats affect communities and livelihoods. These include conflict, desert locust, fall armyworm, frost and hail, crop pests and diseases, livestock diseases, human diseases, landslides, earthquakes, and urban and forest fires. Every source of evidence suggests that Ethiopia would feel the human and economic impacts of climate change intensely, and the impacts will only continue to grow if the country continues a business-as-usual approach to crisis response, and will not be able to manage the increasing scale of the challenges. Thus, there is call by all stakeholders for a paradigm shift in the way the country deals with communities at risk, in order to take preventive actions to reduce exposure, vulnerability and impact at local level. This requires moving away from a reactive system that solely focuses on drought and supply of life-saving humanitarian relief and emergency responses during disasters to a comprehensive proactive disaster and climate risk management approach, including climate change adaptation, among which are interventions to enhance livelihood diversification, social protection programmes and risk transfer mechanisms. Furthermore, resilient agrifood systems support should include a range of proven interventions that are context-relevant and cover the whole agrifood system, such as increase in fertilizer use where appropriate and high-yielding and drought-tolerant seeds, strengthened extension and advisory systems at the kebele (local) level through the use of farmer field schools and pastoral field schools, expansion of access to credit, livelihood diversification, risk transfer mechanism and institutional development that link short-term emergency relief to long-term development pathways. This approach is essential for building resilience to natural hazard and human-induced disasters resulting in food insecurity challenges. Much progress has been made in the last 50 years in the way of managing mainly drought disaster risks. Large-scale prevention and mitigation programmes have been designed, incorporating a focus on vulnerabilities, household asset-building, and public works for environmental rehabilitation and generation of livelihoods. Preparedness has been enhanced by the development of various policies and strategic documents for assessment and intervention, early warning and response systems, and economic, social and physical infrastructure to strengthen the local economy and household livelihoods. An attempt has also been made for humanitarian response to count on an established risk-financing.
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    Project
    Building Resilience of Agricultural Sector to Natural Disasters and Climate Change Impacts - TCP/SRB/3705 2022
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    Serbia is highly exposed and vulnerable to natural hazards. According to the data available and the INFORM 2015 Risk Index, the country ranks at 87 in the world vulnerability list, with evidently the highest score in the region. The major natural hazards to which Serbia is exposed include floods, drought, storms, heavy rain, atmospheric discharge, hail, landslide or landslip, extreme air temperatures, ice accumulation on the water flow, earthquakes, epidemic livestock diseases and the emergence of pests, and other large-scale natural phenomena, which may endanger the health and lives of people or cause extensive damage. Floods and droughts are the most severe forms of natural disasters in the country, impacting a large number of the population and causing significant economic losses, with the agriculture sector being one of the most affected.

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