The impact of natural hazards and disasters on agriculture and food and nutrition security

Nearly a quarter of damages wrought by natural disasters on the developing world are borne by the agricultural sector according to initial results from a new FAO study released at the 2015 UN World Conference for Disaster Risk Reduction. Twenty-two percent of all damages inflicted by natural hazards such as drought, floods storms or tsunamis are registered within the agriculture sector, FAO’s analysis of 78 post-disaster needs assessments in 48 developing countries spanning the 2003-2013 period shows. These damages and losses are often incurred by poor rural and semi-rural communities without insurance and lacking the financial resources needed to regain lost livelihoods. Yet only 4.5 percent of post-disaster humanitarian aid in the 2003-2013 period targeted agriculture.

The team’s preliminary findings include:

• When droughts occur, the agriculture sector absorbs up to “84% of all economic impacts”;
• Within the sector, 42% of assessed losses were to crops (flooding was responsible for 60% of the damage; storms were responsible for 23%);
• Livestock was the second worst-affected activity, accounting for 36% of the damage total Asia was the most affected region, with estimated losses in the region of US $28bn
• Africa was a close second, with losses of US $26bn