Part 1 Introduction
©FAO/Michael Tewelde
In contrast to international development ambitions, 2023 came at the end of the warmest decade on record, marked by unprecedented extreme weather events and large-scale disasters whose impacts have been exacerbated by ongoing conflicts and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The global community has experienced widespread human, economic and infrastructure losses, disruptions to supply chains, and the degradation of vital environmental and ecological systems in recent years. The occurrence and intensity of disaster events, defined by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) as “a serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society at any scale due to hazardous events interacting with conditions of exposure, vulnerability and capacity, leading to one or more of the following: human, material, economic and environmental losses and impacts,”1 is increasing and is expected to worsen as a warming planet faces up to the challenges of an uncertain risk landscape in the context of finite biological and ecological resources.
The year 2023 offers a good opportunity to assess the impact of disasters on agriculture as the international community approaches important global milestones in measuring progress towards a more sustainable future. The 2023 SDG Summit on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the midterm review of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 have provided an important platform for reviewing progress made in reducing risks, building resilience and promoting a more sustainable world. Looking forward, the Global Stocktake of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change at the end of 2023 and the Summit of the Future in 2024 will present further opportunities to continue the assessment of global development gains.
According to the EM-DAT database of the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED),c which contains the most extensive records of extreme events, disasters caused nearly 31 000 deaths and an estimated USD 223.8 billion in economic losses in 2022 alone, affecting more than 185 million people.2 The frequency of disaster events has increased from 100 per year in the 1970s to around 400 events per year worldwide in the past 20 years (FIGURE 1).d
FIGURE 1 NUMBER OF DISASTERS BY EM-DAT HAZARD GROUPING AND TOTAL ECONOMIC LOSSES (1972–2022)
![Source: EM-DAT. 2023. EM-DAT Public. In: EM-DAT. Brussels. [Cited January 2023]. https://public.emdat.be/](../img/CC7900EN_fig1.jpg)
In general, risks affecting agriculture are omnipresent and growing at a rate that is outstripping efforts to reduce them. Increasing the resilience (broadly defined here as the ability to deal with disturbances or the effect of adverse events) and coping capacities of a community or a socioecological system requires significant changes to existing practices and improved access to and mobilization of resources. Developing better impact and risk information that is consistent and appropriately combined at all scales will allow agricultural communities at local and national scales to determine the best possible strategies for mitigating or reducing the impact of future events. Simultaneously, efforts to prevent the creation of new risks and reduce existing risks before a disaster event takes place, build capacities to cope during a disaster, and develop post-event response measures must become widespread if we are to achieve the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Paris Agreement and the Sendai Framework. This requires a cross sectoral paradigm shift in agricultural activities, plans, policies and financing to cultivate a culture of proactive prevention and risk reduction.
FAO is launching this new flagship report, The Impact of Disasters on Agriculture and Food Security, as part of its ongoing commitment to promote a more inclusive, resilient and sustainable future for agriculture. Building on three prior FAO publications on this topic,e this report aims at organizing and disseminating available knowledge on the impact of disasters on agriculture with a view to promote evidence-based investment in disaster risk reduction. It aims at demonstrating methodologies for improved data collection and research on risks affecting agriculture and the associated impacts, and directing international attention and political and economic support and commitment to disaster risk reduction.
Given the urgent need to understand and address the effects of disasters on agriculture, this report consolidates existing knowledge and provides new data on the subject in two main ways: first, by gathering and summarizing available evidence on the impact of disasters on agriculture using a variety of tools and approaches to unpack and quantify, where possible, the losses experienced in agriculture as a result of disasters; and second, by analysing the potential benefits of investing in disaster risk reduction solutions, such as proactive farm-level DRR good practices and anticipatory action interventions as a means of increasing the resilience of agricultural livelihoods.
The framework presented below connects the key concepts of disaster risk reduction in agriculture to the contents of the different parts of the report.
1.1 A conceptual framework of disaster risks and the organization of this report
Through the work of the Open-Ended Intergovernmental Working Group on Terminology and Indicators Related to Disaster Risk Reduction (OIEWG) established by the UNGA in A/RES/69/284, several definitions and concepts explored in this paper were elaborated. These definitions were then intergovernmentally endorsed by the UNGA in A/RES/71/276. As defined in this body of work, disaster risk is “the potential loss of life, injury, or destroyed or damaged assets which could occur to a system, society or a community in a specific period of time, determined probabilistically as a function of hazard, exposure, vulnerability and capacity.”
The term hazard is used to describe “a process, phenomenon or human activity that may cause loss of life, injury or other health impacts, property damage, social and economic disruption or environmental degradation” in a given area and over a period of time.1 The International Science Council and UNDRR have developed an international reference set of 302 hazards clustered into eight groups: meteorological and hydrological hazards, extraterrestrial hazards, geohazards, environmental hazards, chemical hazards, biological hazards, technological hazards, and societal hazards, which can be further disaggregated or adapted to specific disaster contexts.3 Agriculture is predominantly affected by meteorological and hydrological hazards, geohazards, environmental hazards and biological hazards, although societal hazards such as armed conflict and technological and chemical hazards can also pose potential threats (TABLE 1).
TABLE 1 HAZARD TYPES ADDRESSED IN THIS REPORT
Exposure describes the “situation of people, infrastructure, housing, production capacities and other tangible human assets located in hazard-prone areas”.1 In agriculture, exposed items can include crops, livestock, fisheries and aquaculture, and forestry products, as well as assets such as production and transport infrastructure, or resources such as land, water and other ecological resources that support agricultural production and the associated livelihoods. Vulnerability, however, refers to “conditions determined by physical, social, economic and environmental factors or processes which increase the susceptibility of an individual, a community, assets or systems to the impacts of hazards”.1 This includes the economic, social and environmental characteristics inherent to the society or system that can be affected. The final dimension of the definition of disaster risk endorsed is capacity, defined as “the combination of all the strengths, attributes and resources available within an organization, community or society to manage and reduce disaster risks and strengthen resilience.”1
FIGURE 2 provides a conceptual framework for the report by describing the interplay of disaster risks in agriculture and linking it to the organization of the report and its different parts. Components of disaster risk such as vulnerability, exposure and coping capacity occur in a continuum and change over time. The amount of loss and damage produced by a disaster depends on the speed and spatial scale at which a hazard interacts with the components of disaster risk. In agriculture, as with other sectors, both hazards and the resulting disaster event can unfold at different temporal and spatial scales. Hazards such as heatwaves, drought or pest infestations, as well as their resulting impacts, extend over longer timeframes and are commonly referred to as slow-onset events. Storms, floods, and earthquakes are sudden-onset events whose impacts are relatively restricted on a temporal and spatial scale, making it easier to measure the resulting loss and damage they produce. The initial destruction to physical or structural assets amounts to direct damage, and direct economic losses refer to the monetary value of these destroyed assets. Disasters also produce secondary or indirect losses that represent a decline in economic value added as a result of direct economic loss and human and environmental impacts.4
FIGURE 2 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE REPORT
The dynamic interaction between hazards and other components of disaster risk is also influenced, as shown in FIGURE 2, by underlying risks drivers and shocks that have cascading impacts, affecting multiple systems and sectors within and across boundaries. These disaster risk drivers, defined as “processes or conditions, often development-related, that influence the level of disaster risk by increasing levels of exposure and vulnerability or reducing capacity”4 include climate change, poverty and inequality, population growth, but also the occurrence of pandemics, practices such as unsustainable land use and management, armed conflicts and environmental degradation. Perhaps the most pressing risk for agriculture, which depends on climate conditions and the health of environmental and ecological resources, is the growing threat of climate change. As the process of climate change intensifies, the effects of a wider range of climate extremes will become increasingly important. Climate change causes changes in the frequency, intensity, spatial extent and duration of weather and climate related hazards.2 According to the IPCC, high levels of vulnerability combined with more severe and frequent weather and climate extremes may result in some parts of the world becoming increasingly difficult places in which to live and grow food.5
Based on the interplay of risks, exposure, vulnerability, capacity and hazard described in FIGURE 2, Part 2 of this report quantifies the impact of disasters on agriculture and its subsectors – crops, livestock, fisheries and aquaculture, and forestry.
Historical loss data are essential for quantifying and validating estimates of disaster impacts. Depending on the hazard context, assessment object or subject, needs of institutions and stakeholders, and the social, physical and temporal dimension of the impact evaluation, there are multiple approaches and methodologies that could be adopted for measuring disaster loss and damage. Above all, the availability of relevant and reliable data is the single biggest factor in determining impact evaluation approaches.
Currently, there is no specialized repository for documenting the repercussions of disasters in agrifood systems. Moreover, the data within existing international disaster databases either lack comprehensive sectoral coverage or do not provide information that can be easily disaggregated to identify and evaluate the various risks and consequences associated with agrifood systems. The complex challenge of recording disaster losses in agriculture, described in section 2.1, is in part due to the diversity represented within agricultural subsectors, which encompasses a diverse group of products, assets, activities and livelihoods that can be affected by multiple hazardous events. Standardizing common definitions, data indicators and measurement methodologies is imperative as part of a long-term strategy aimed at enhancing disaster risk reduction through improved information gathering.
FAO has been working towards improving coverage and standardizing data collection techniques to assess the impacts of extreme events in agriculture, and towards establishing tools and methodologies for regular monitoring and reporting at the country and subnational level.6 It has provided support in developing a standardized methodology and definitions for the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction’s C2 indicator: Direct agricultural loss attributed to disasters (described in section 2.2 of this report), which records data on loss and damage in agriculture and its subsectors by member states of the United Nations (corresponding to SDG indicator 1.5.2). However, data contained under the C2 indicator needs to be further strengthened as countries are lagging in data collection and reporting. In the context of insufficient data availability, evidence on the relative share of losses borne by this sector versus other productive sectors needs to be derived from alternative sources, such as post disaster needs assessments.
In the absence of data, different approaches have been proposed to be able to estimate the impact of a disaster on agriculture. One approach to estimating the global impact of disasters on agriculture is the use of probabilistic and statistical models, built upon the relationship between historical disaster events and agricultural production data. Section 2.3 of this report undertakes such an exercise, providing the first ever assessment of global agricultural losses in crops and livestock resulting from disaster events over the past three decades. Information on hazard frequency is obtained from EM-DAT, whereas information on production, prices and area harvested are used to calculate fluctuations in yields as a reflection of exposure and vulnerability in agriculture. This analysis utilizes a counterfactual scenario to compare a world with and without disasters, revealing insights into the annual magnitude, scale, and variable loss burden experienced across different regions and hazard types.
When data production and reporting is of an advanced standard, for example in the crop and livestock subsectors, assessments can provide detailed, ground-level loss estimates for production and related agricultural activities. The assessment of crop losses due to the fall armyworm invasion in East Africa and the impact evaluation of drought on livestock in Somalia are able to drill down to a local level and employ indicators, methodologies, and approaches that are tailored to take into account the specific effects of different hazards and risks on agricultural production. They highlight how data availability affects accurate assessments of disaster impacts and propose strategies and methodologies that can be employed to address the specific needs for impact evaluations in different contexts.
In contrast, a lack of standardized indicators and data for measuring impacts in the fisheries and aquaculture and forestry subsectors restricts both micro and macro level analysis of disaster impacts. In section 2.4, an overview of the challenges of assessing the impacts of disasters in these two subsectors is presented. Certain hazards and disaster events highlight the limitations of data availability and underscore the significance of impact evaluation exercises for the forestry, fisheries and aquaculture sectors.
Part 3 of the report takes a more holistic approach, considering how the main underlying risk drivers – climate change, pandemics, environmental degradation and armed conflicts – impact agriculture. It builds on the analysis presented in Part 2 by providing insights into some underlying disaster risk drivers and their cascading impacts that affect agriculture (see FIGURE 2). First, this section presents a new application of climate change impact attribution science to demonstrate the extent to which climate change is affecting crop productivity in four different country contexts. Second, case studies on the COVID-19 pandemic and African swine fever outbreaks are discussed to highlight the impact of pandemics and epidemics on the agriculture sector, including cascading impacts on global markets. Finally, this part also explores the effect of armed conflicts on agriculture and the interaction and amplification of underlying risk drivers in crisis contexts.
Finally, Part 4 uses available evidence to analyse the benefits of preventing hazards and disaster risks from triggering full-blown disasters through the application of farm-level DRR good practices, and how mitigating disaster risks through anticipatory actions and investment in multirisk resilience can limit or reduce damages and losses in agriculture. The proactive development of disaster risk reduction measures, support for good practices and technologies at the farm level, and the adoption of increased disaster and climate finance for food insecure and vulnerable populations have demonstrable benefits for reducing the brunt of disaster impacts for both men and women. Not only do these good practices provide better economic returns, but they also produce broader socioeconomic and environmental co-benefits for strengthening rural livelihoods and increasing the resilience capacities of farmers and people engaged in agriculture. The case studies showcased in this part of the report provide examples of cost–benefit analysis of farm-level DRR good practices, technologies and risk informed anticipatory action when a hazard is forecasted, which is a proven cost-effective solution for saving lives and livelihoods. Lastly, it looks at a suite of solutions deployed to curb the spread of the desert locust outbreak and protect agricultural livelihoods in the Horn of Africa.
