3.3 The impact of armed conflict on agriculture
Active armed conflictsag are at their highest level since the Second World War. Since 2015, each year has seen over 50 armed conflicts,ah with 54 occurring in 2019 and 56 occurring in 2020.193 The inclusion of armed conflicts as a societal hazard within the ISC-UNDRR Hazard list represents a response to calls for stronger coherence across disaster risk reduction, climate change and humanitarian agendas.194 While the risk of armed conflict is outside the scope of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030, the interplay between conflict and disaster risk is an area that requires further examination, including as it relates to damage and loss. These compound conflict-disaster risk crises are an example of what is increasingly referred to as polycrises.195 All other things being equal, the impact of these crises can be far greater that a single hazard event, becoming amplified with cascading impacts on agriculture and the sectors upon which it depends.196
The 2023 Midterm Review of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 demonstrated that Member States “frequently position considerations of conflict, violence and instability as indistinguishable from other types of risk as they consider how to achieve resilience, both as catalysts of vulnerability and as hazards in themselves,”197 and reported “improvements in the comprehensive understanding of the systemic nature of risk in protracted crises”198 towards the implementation of Priority 1 of the framework.
The number of national, regional, and sectoral disaster risk reduction strategies and plansai that factor in societal hazards is increasing. For example, the Central African Republic’s draft National Strategy explicitly discussed armed conflict, and Iraq’s National DRR Strategy describes addressing risks of toxic and non-toxic remnants of war in addition to those of floods and droughts. Afghanistan’s National Strategy on Disaster Risk Reduction identified conflict as undermining coping mechanisms and driving degraded public service delivery and infrastructure. In Mozambique, the National Policy and Strategy for Internal Displacement Management addresses Sendai Framework Target B and covers displacement resulting from climate-related hazards and conflict, and crucially focuses on resilience building, finding durable solutions and risk prevention.199
Research on the relationship between armed conflict and disasters can be categorized broadly into two areas: the impact of armed conflict on disaster risk, and the influence of disasters on armed conflict dynamics. For the former, research suggests new disaster risks can emerge through compounding and diverse pathways that are not linear or consistent, influencing exposure, vulnerability and coping capacity. In this regard, fighting can increase the vulnerability of a society to disasters as infrastructure is destroyed, poverty increases and long-term investments in disaster risk reduction are no longer considered important or cannot be funded. Unsustainable agricultural practices that lead to increased disaster risk may be driven by disruption and/or loss of livelihoods due to armed conflict. Conversely, there is evidence that conflict can increase local coping capacity.200 For example, a recent study of Rohingya refugees looked at how coping strategies were developed and adopted, both at the individual and collective levels, in the Kutupalong Rohingya camp in Bangladesh.201 Given that armed conflicts also limit access to land, cause population movements, and disrupt access to health care and social protection systems, we need to be cognizant of armed conflicts’ wider damage and loss implications.
Some analysts202 argue that in the aftermath of a disaster, ceasefires and negotiations in civil armed conflicts become more likely, suggesting the potential for at least a temporary de-escalation effect of disasters. This effect could arise due to heightened local and national solidarity in response to a disaster, the desire of armed actors to project a positive image, or the disruption of armed groups’ functioning, including limitations on their mobility. This has been posited to be the case when the Government of Indonesia and armed independence groups in Aceh signed a comprehensive and ongoing peace agreement just a few months after the 2004 tsunami.203
Yet disasters can also lead to or extend the duration of ongoing conflict, including when they drive resource scarcity.204 For example, the 2004 tsunami also had an impact on Sri Lanka. However, in that case, the armed conflict intensified, possibly due to the increased inflow of aid. In general, a 2019 review of the climate-conflict literature205 concluded that while climate variability, hazards and trends do have an impact on armed conflict within countries, this link is relatively minor compared to other influential conflict drivers.
Highlighting the importance of contextual and local-level differences on how disasters can influence conflict dynamics, a comprehensive study by von Uexkull et al.206 looking at Africa and Asia found that in very poor countries local drought increased the likelihood of sustained violence for agriculturally-dependent groups as well as politically-excluded ones. There have also been case studies that indicate that the 2010 Pakistan floods allowed Islamist groups to recruit more easily due to their rapid humanitarian response and perceived lack of support from the government, and thus enhance their ability to escalate the armed conflict,207 though this is contested by others.
A recent qualitative comparative analysis of 36 cases of major disastersaj finds that they have an impact on armed conflict dynamics in 50 percent of all cases, evenly split between escalation and de-escalation. The degree of vulnerability to disasters and a strong disaster impact on at least one armed conflict party are the two critical contextual factors. Tobias notes that “Armed conflicts escalate either when the rebel group gains power vis-à-vis the government during the disaster or when the rebel group intensifies its activities in reaction to the grievances of the disaster-affected population, while a strong government fights back. Disasters facilitate armed conflict de-escalation by weakening at least one conflict party while the other is unable to capitalize on this weakness.”208
The broader geopolitical context influences the operation of food systems, as this often affects how armed conflict is shaped at the local level, as well as through more macrolevel impacts on trade flows because of the interconnectivity of global trade, and how this may be manipulated for political reasons. Food systems that are repeatedly put under stress by conflict tend to move from predictability to instability and volatility. Food supply chains may function during long-term, protracted conflicts, such as in Yemen, where food importers on all sides have adopted dynamic operational methods in a complex and politicized environment. However, this kind of functionality comes at a cost. For instance, food prices in Yemen doubled between 2015 and 2019, and have continued to rise since.209
Research findings are mixed, both in terms of how armed conflict can influence the risk of disasters and how disasters can affect the dynamics of armed conflict. On the latter, it seems that the dynamics of armed conflict can be influenced under specific conditions and can manifest either positively or negatively.
Measuring damage and loss in armed conflict contexts
Assessments of the impact of armed conflicts on agriculture include calculations of damage and destruction of equipment and infrastructure, and loss of productive assets such as livestock. However, other impacts on agriculture have longer-term consequences, including forced displacement and the availability of agricultural labour. Tools and guidance have been developed for adapting PDNAs to complex operating environments, including where armed conflict manifests. As part of a joint initiative, the European Union, World Bank and the United Nations, led by UNDP, have developed a guide to conduct PDNAs in conflict situations that outlines how to perform a conflict-sensitive PDNA in response to growing awareness of the link between conflict and disasters. The guide provides information on how to ensure that post-disaster activities and response operations do not exacerbate conflict dynamics.210 Whilst this guidance document does not cover a detailed study of the linkages between conflicts and disasters, it highlights how thinking about this is evolving and maturing.
In fact, an overall conceptual and analytical framework for framing and analysing all relevant interactions is not available yet. Beyond the elements laid out in Guidance for PDNA in Conflict Situations,211 much remains to be considered. It is recommended that such a framework be developed as one of the next steps in improving thinking around post-disaster assessment as well as disaster risk reduction in armed conflict settings. Access to conduct on-the-ground damage and loss assessments is becoming increasingly challenging. Advances in the field of remote sensing such as frequency of image acquisition, a massive increase in availability of high-resolution imagery and major advances in speed of processing and interpretation can assist in quantifying agricultural sector damage and loss in armed conflict situations. Techniques are available to understand not just impacts on access to land and land use types, but also crop types and accurate livestock estimates.
Increased investment in addressing underlying disaster risks is essential to build resilience and should be integrated into both humanitarian and development interventions. Preparedness for response and to build back better must consider the various hazards a locality faces, including layered or compounding hazards such as armed conflict and natural hazards that can have a higher aggregate impact than separately occurring hazards.212
Somalia: Drought impacts exacerbated by chronic armed conflict, displacement and insecurity
Recurrent drought, food insecurity and subsequent famine risk have become a devastating and increasingly unsustainable cycle in Somalia in recent decades. Since the beginning of the civil war in 1991, these issues have become even more devastating than before. Between the 2011 famine and the huge 2016–2017 drought, it was estimated that approximately USD 4.5 billion was spent on emergency responses to save lives.ak The confluence of factors contributing to repeated emergencies in Somalia – including multilayered conflict, poverty and displacement – creates an exceedingly complex situation when it comes to calculating damage and loss. In 2017, a multisectoral damage and loss assessment was conducted under the overall coordination of UNDP, the World Bank, the European Union and the Government of Somalia. The Somalia Drought Impact and Needs Assessment (DINA) provided an assessment of drought damage and loss impacts and an estimation of recovery and resilience needs. It was intended to provide essential information for the government to fulfil its obligation to lead the recovery from drought. The DINA was also designed to provide recommendations on what would be required to move Somalia beyond perpetual emergency response, into recovery and eventually towards resilient development.
The overall results of the DINA were that damage and loss in the agricultural sector (rainfed and irrigated crops, livestock and fisheries) amounted to a combined total of just under USD 2 billion. As in other drought contexts, the largest impact was on agricultural losses (USD 1.5 billion), which represented 68 percent of total losses across all sectors. An interesting consideration here is the extent to which these agricultural damage and loss figures were affected by the protracted instability within the country. This was never quantified in the DINA; however, it was noted that the security situation had been a prominent factor in contributing to the degradation of rangelands, massive deforestation and degradation of agricultural infrastructure, particularly irrigation systems, and hence the overall figures for damage and loss in the sector.
The Syrian Arab Republic: The impact of widespread and rapid increases in instability and conflict
Before the start of the crisis in 2011, the Syrian Arab Republic was the only country in the region that was self-sufficient in food production, especially in staple agricultural crops such as wheat and barley. It had turned into a regional exporter before a major drought in 2008–2009 forced the country to import large quantities of wheat for the first time in many years. In the years before 2011, the Syrian Arab Republic had witnessed higher yields due to improvements in land and crop management practices that helped it capture major markets in neighbouring countries and the Gulf. In addition, the country had huge strategic wheat reserves that were a cornerstone of the Baath Party’s food security policy to create self-sufficiency.
Rather quickly after the initial uprisings in 2011, the country was plunged into a complex set of conflicts. Five years into the crisis, FAO conducted a comprehensive damage and loss assessment to understand the impacts of five years of armed conflict on the agricultural sector. The Syrian Arab Republic Damage, Loss and Needs Assessment (DLNA) was conducted during 2016–2017, in an attempt to quantify the impact as well as look at the livelihood effects and the priorities for recovery.
The results of the assessment indicated that during the first five years of the crisis, total damage in the agricultural sector amounted to USD 16 billion. This was the equivalent to one-third of the Syrian Arab Republic’s GDP in 2016. As in Somalia, the largest dollar impact was in terms of losses (USD 9.21 billion), although in this case the level of damages was USD 6.83 billion (or 75 percent of the value of losses) as opposed to 33 percent in the case of the Somalia case study. This was because agricultural assets and infrastructure suffered extensive damage and destruction as a direct consequence of armed conflict. In this case, the impact of conflict on agriculture was very direct, whereas in the case of Somalia it was indirect.
Ukraine: Localized and global impacts of armed conflict on agriculture
The Ukraine case study illustrates the magnitude of the impact of armed conflict on agricultural production and food security within the country, and its global ramifications. Ukraine is one of the world’s top agricultural food producers and exporters and plays a critical role in supplying oilseeds and grains to the global market. However, the war in Ukraine has significantly affected production. Agriculture was a key driver of Ukraine’s economy before the war, contributing 10 percent to the country’s GDP, providing employment for 14 percent of the labour force and generating 24 percent of the total exports in the country.213,214,215
The impact of the armed conflict presented below is the result of assessments conducted between September and October 2022 in 22 oblasts,216 showing the damage and loss of the war as experienced by rural households, livestock keepers, and fishers and aquaculture producers to be nearly USD 2.3 billion. On average, 25 percent of the rural population stopped or reduced agricultural production, although along the contact line more than 38 percent of respondents reported stopping agricultural production. Factors limiting or stopping agricultural production included damage to productive equipment and infrastructure (reported by 5 percent of household surveyed), an increase in domestic production costs by an average of 25 percent, limited access to financial services necessary to obtain inputs, and contamination of land by mines and unexploded ordinances.al One in six (15.7 percent) of crop storage facilities were also impacted by the armed conflict since it started in February 2022.217 The figures below break down the damage and losses within the crop and livestock subsectors. The overall effects on the fisheries and aquaculture sector in Ukraine for the first eight months of the war in 2022 accounted for damage of USD 4.97 million, and losses (changes in financial flows) of USD 16.6 million, which is 63 percent of the total annual output of the Ukrainian aquaculture sector (USD 34 million).
As this analysis is limited to the first eight months of the war in Ukraine, it does not account for damage resulting from the collapse of the Kakhovka Dam. The Kakhovka Reservoir and wider Dnipro River system are the primary agricultural water resource for the area. At the time of writing, the post disaster needs assessment was still underway. These damage and loss figures are likely to increase significantly depending on the evolution of the armed conflict and the level of support for recovery that the agriculture sector and related subsectors will receive in response to the war.
Ukraine is prone to a variety of hazards which can impact the agricultural sector, including natural hazards such as floods, droughts, landslides and storms, as well as technological and biological hazards. Should one occur simultaneously with the armed conflict it could send further shocks throughout global agriculture, compounding the systemic disaster risk. The environmental impacts of the war itself are also leading to significant disaster risks in the long-term, including through damage to chemical industrial sites, which can create both immediate and longer-term ecological hazards.218 To increase the resilience of Ukraine’s agricultural sector, recovery efforts must be risk-informed, and building back better may have additional costs beyond those captured within the PDNA.
FIGURE 36 DAMAGE AND LOSS IN CROPS AND LIVESTOCK SUBSECTORS IN UKRAINE (USD MILLION AND PERCENTAGE)
