Part 5 Conclusions
©FAO/Asim Hafeez
The growing frequency and severity of disaster events are producing unprecedented levels of damage and loss in agriculture around the world. These negative impacts cascade down value chains to affect agrifood systems across multiple dimensions, compromising food security and undermining the sustainability of the agriculture sector. The increasingly globalized and interconnected nature of agrifood systems, and the heavy reliance of agriculture on weather and climate conditions amplify its vulnerability and exposure to the growing threat of climate change, crises such as the recent COVID-19 health pandemic and ongoing conflict situations. Facing up to these challenges – and advancing towards the goals of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change – requires policies and strategies that are grounded in data and adopt a multihazard and proactive approach to reducing disaster risk in agriculture.
A key theme running across all sections of the report is the need for improved data and information on the impacts of disasters in agriculture. Investment in enhanced data monitoring, reporting, and collection methodologies and tools is an essential first step in building national capacities to understand and reduce disaster risks in agriculture and agrifood systems. This report has advanced the knowledge base by providing a first global estimate of the impact of disasters on crops and livestock production. Nearly USD 3.8 trillion, amounting to an average of USD 123 billion per year or 5 percent of the global agricultural GDP, was lost due to disasters affecting agriculture over the past three decades. Production losses translate into reduced nutrient availability around the world, with a loss of dietary energy estimated at 148 kcal per person per day on average. This figure represents a significant setback in ensuring food security and nutrition for all, and in building inclusive, resilient and sustainable agricultural livelihoods.
The gradual but steady rise in the amount of world production lost annually in tonnes is most stark for countries with the most vulnerable populations. Low-income countries and SIDS have been hit the hardest, as shown by the extent of losses experienced in terms of share of agricultural GDP. There is an urgent need for additional support to be provided for enhancing the resilience of agriculture in these contexts and across the world, starting with better and more locally relevant information on the magnitude and dimensions of disaster impacts in agriculture and related food systems. Results generated through probabilistic modelling using secondary data, as done for the global assessment of losses in this report, should ideally be substituted by harmonized information on disaster losses collected at the national and subnational scale.
Sector and subsector specific approaches for assessing vulnerability and exposure, evaluating impacts and reducing risks are essential. The same hazard, for example a plant or animal disease, can produce negative effects in crops, livestock, forestry, and fisheries and aquaculture subsectors along totally different trajectories and timelines. Estimates of livestock losses in the wake of the 2016–2017 drought in Somalia, and a ground level assessment of the impact of the fall armyworm infestation both serve to underline the detailed quantification of losses that is possible in the crops and livestock sector when data are more readily available and scaled down to local contexts and hazards. However, even in subsectors with better information access, there is a need to develop standardized tools for measuring the impact of disasters to assess direct damage and loss, build capacity at various levels, support coordination mechanisms for prevention and response, and scale up these loss estimations to a national or global scale. Data recording must also extend over timescales that take production cycles into account and disentangle the multiyear effects of disasters, as demonstrated by the evaluation of livestock losses in Somalia.
The vast and often remote space occupied by the forestry and fisheries subsectors, and the diversity of their ecological stocks, requires different approaches to valuing assets and calculating impacts than those employed for crops or livestock. These two subsectors suffer from a lack of comprehensive information on their production, assets, activities and livelihoods, and are frequently overlooked in post-disaster impact evaluations and needs assessments. Currently, there is no systematic approach for monitoring the disasters and emergencies that affect fisheries and aquaculture and forestry, or for tracking subsequent damage and loss. Although data and statistics are improving, the lack of standardized methodologies and tools for data collection prevents the formulation of even general estimates of disaster impacts in these two subsectors, which are critical for sustaining the food security and livelihoods of millions of people around the world and whose health is essential for maintaining biodiverse ecosystems and mitigating climate change.
Emerging technologies and advances in remote sensing applications offer new avenues towards improving information on disaster impacts in agriculture. The increasing precision and cost effectiveness of earth observation systems, satellite imagery and computing power offered by machine learning and artificial intelligence platforms can supplement national statistics and conventional data collection tools, such as surveys to provide improved information on the hazards, exposure, vulnerabilities and risks driving disaster impacts. To feed into the monitoring of progress towards the 2030 Agenda and Sendai Framework, promoting and strengthening data reporting for the Sendai Framework C2 indicator on direct economic losses in agriculture, corresponding to indicator 1.5.2 of the SDGs, will also provide a systematic and comprehensive database for disaster losses in agriculture.
A second key conclusion of this report is the need to develop and mainstream multisectoral and multihazard disaster risk reduction approaches into policy and programming at all levels. Disaster impacts are worsened by multiple drivers and overlapping crises that produce cascading and compounding effects and worsen the exposure and vulnerability of people, ecosystems, and economies and weaken coping capacity. As described in this report, factors such as climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, the African swine fever epidemic and armed conflicts, all result in the amplification of disaster risk and impacts in agriculture. Unpacking the different ways and degrees to which each of these risk drivers triggers damage and loss and produce negative and cascading effects on agricultural production, value chains and food security reveals the interconnected nature of risks affecting agriculture. Designing risk reduction strategies and interventions for specific hazard contexts must first involve a deeper consideration of the overall risk landscape, including interdependencies existing across sectors and boundaries.
In the case of climate change, the use of attribution science methodologies provides new information on the degree to which climate change is exacerbating losses in agriculture. Assessments undertaken for Argentina, Kazakhstan, Morocco and South Africa confirmed that climate change has increased the occurrence of yield anomalies significantly, from slightly more likely in Morocco to being multiplied by a factor of ten in South Africa. Similarly, restrictions put in place in response to the COVID-19 pandemic provided another example of a global crisis that had long lasting negative effects on agricultural production and food security. Despite some transportation exemptions, restrictions during the planting season such as stay-at-home orders and trade limitations made it much more likely for farmers to report difficulty in obtaining agricultural inputs in surveyed countries. Much in the same way, although the ASF outbreak was largely a localized event in China, it affected the production and prices of pig meat and live animals in various countries across the world. Another underlying driver of disaster risk is the growing incidence of armed conflict around the world. Not only do conflicts result in direct damage and loss to agriculture and food systems, but they also undermine development progress and exacerbate disaster risk. As with climate change and pandemics, armed conflicts produce long-term negative effects that can spill over to regional or global scales.
Effective strategies for reducing disaster and climate risk must, therefore, adopt a holistic, system-wide view of the different drivers and impact pathways that produce losses in agrifood systems. This is particularly relevant in countries that have many vulnerable people or communities, have less developed capacities or resources to prepare for or respond to disasters, or where fluctuations in agricultural production can easily threaten food security. The knock-on effects of climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, the ASF epidemic, and armed conflicts on the agriculture sector underscore the need for approaches that are truly multisectoral, multihazard and preventive, taking into consideration co-benefits and trade-offs between interventions. However, lack of understanding of the interconnected and systemic risks and the related data continues to be a challenge. It is also very important to gain a better understanding of the benefits of disaster risk reduction actions in agriculture, and to build a robust evidence base of interventions and measures that can be scaled up and further promoted.
As documented in Part 4 of the report, there is a limited but growing body of evidence on the need for investments in resilience that provide benefits in reducing disaster risk in agriculture and improve agricultural production and livelihoods. Context and location-specific farm-level disaster risk reduction good practices are cost effective solutions to enhance the resilience of livelihoods and agriculture against natural and biological hazards. The case studies presented in this part demonstrate that not only do good practices reduce disaster risks, but they also display significant additional benefits. The limited evidence available suggests that technical solutions, anticipatory actions, and livelihood protection measures implemented for risk management in agriculture yield significant benefits. However, these solutions have not yet been widely adopted or scaled up. This calls for urgent action to foster the adoption of available innovations, promoting the generation of more scalable disaster risk management solutions, and enhancing early warning to inform anticipatory actions.
There are two suitable and complementary pathways for scaling up farm-level disaster risk reduction good practices in agriculture. The first is at a smaller and incremental scale, through farmer-to-farmer replication, which requires lower investment and less institutional support. The second pathway is through larger-scale efforts in which government and private sector support is needed to promote the uptake of good practices widely and swiftly. Both scenarios require incentives and capacity building for farmers, which can be deployed simultaneously. Crucially, both pathways depend on good infrastructure as well as an enabling environment. This means that new initiatives, incentives and investments aimed at meeting those critical needs for scaling up are necessary.
Unlocking the full potential of anticipatory action requires looking beyond triggers of natural hazards and investing in integrated systems that can respond in a multihazard context. To make them focused and effective, these systems need standardized quantitative and qualitative tools for subnational, national and global data collection. Risk information systems, including agroclimate services, risk analysis, risk monitoring and early warning systems to enable anticipatory action must be improved to scale up disaster risk reduction interventions. Investments must be made to strengthen the capacity of countries at the national and local levels on these systems and services, from monitoring and data collection to dissemination of actionable alerts and advice to end users, and to enable and empower farmers to make risk-informed decision and actions. Timely advice and early warning on climate information can help farmers to prepare for and respond to climate impacts. It is estimated that early warning systems, including in the food and agriculture sectors, can save lives and assets that are worth up to seven times their cost. Advanced technology and innovation create new opportunities for the dissemination of alerts and advisories to farmers and rural communities to ensure the information reaches the most vulnerable, including women, girls and youth. International cooperation and partnerships at all levels are required to establish global monitoring, risk assessment and early warning systems.
Monitoring risks in the agricultural sector is another crucial aspect of risk reduction that requires greater attention and coordination. At the farm, subnational, national and international levels, strengthened surveillance, monitoring and rapid diagnostics would have prevented significant losses in the case of most slow-onset events, such as the drought in Somalia, the fall armyworm infestation, the COVID-19 pandemic and the ASF epidemic. The risk-informed desert locust intervention in East Africa highlights the successful outcomes that can be achieved through coordinated monitoring, early warning and international action. Such risk-informed actions are deemed to have averted over 4.5 million tonnes of crop losses and secured cereal requirements for 30.6 million people. The intervention provides important lessons for mitigating the impacts of future desert locust upsurges and preventing and/or mitigating negative household coping mechanisms and food security deterioration.
Though not yet comprehensive, the available evidence suggests a set of interventions that can be undertaken to improve disaster impact assessments and to step up disaster risk reduction actions at all levels. National, sectoral and local disaster risk reduction strategies are a cornerstone for achieving inclusive and resilient agriculture, and the United Nations system can be an important collaborator in mainstreaming disaster risk reduction in national and sectoral policies, programmes and funding mechanisms. The General Assembly of the United Nations has recognized that sustainable and predictable financing for disaster risk reduction is imperative. To strengthen the business case for investment in approaches that prevent and reduce risk, alongside targeted and standalone investments in disaster risk reduction, mechanisms should be developed for budget tagging and tracking expenditures within and across sectors.
Documenting good practices in DRR, including their integration in development and humanitarian interventions is essential towards building a robust evidence base on risk-informed solutions. Testing the benefits of proactive DRR good practices and modelling their benefits under both hazard and non-hazard scenarios through calculating their benefit–cost ratios is an important step towards their promotion. As demonstrated in this report, the practices identified yield added benefits of USD 3.6 under hazard conditions and USD 4.3 under non-hazard conditions. As such, they have significant benefits even in the absence of a hazard and should be systematically documented and promoted. It is therefore imperative that multihazard disaster risk reduction is integrated into agricultural policies and extension services, as well as national and local disaster risk reduction strategies.
