Earth Science News
FARM NEWS
Disasters cause $3.8 trillion in crop losses over 30 years: FAO
Disasters cause $3.8 trillion in crop losses over 30 years: FAO
By Juliette MICHEL
Paris (AFP) Oct 13, 2023

Natural and man-made disasters have caused $3.8 trillion in crop and livestock losses over 30 years, the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization said on Friday.

Floods, droughts, insect infestations, storms, disease and war have caused about $123 billion per year in lost food production between 1991 and 2021, the equivalent of five percent of total production or enough to feed up to half a billion people per year, the FAO said in a report.

This is the first time the UN body has tried to compile such an estimate, with the aim of putting into context the scale of the cost of disasters on both a global and personal scale.

"The international community is taking stock of the fact that disasters are... increasing tremendously... quadrupling since the 1970s" and are having an increasing impact on food production, the deputy head of FAO's statistics department, Piero Conforti, told AFP.

The FAO report, entitled "The Impact of Disasters on Agriculture and Food Security", found that disasters are increasing in severity and frequency, from 100 per year in the 1970s to around 400 events per year in the past 20 years.

- Climate change a systemic risk -

Climate change is increasingly responsible, as well as human and livestock diseases.

"Agriculture around the world is increasingly at risk of being disrupted due to multiple hazards and threats such as flooding, water scarcity, drought, declining agricultural yields and fisheries resources, loss of biological diversities and environmental degradation," said the FAO.

It identified the "systemic drivers of disaster risk" as climate change, pandemics, epidemics and armed conflicts.

The damage adds up quickly.

Average annual grain losses hit 69 million tonnes, the equivalent of France's annual production.

Some 40 million tonnes of fruit and vegetable production was lost, and 16 million tonnes of meat, dairy and eggs.

Around 23 percent of losses due to disasters were sustained in the agricultural sector.

The FAO further found that poorer nations suffered the highest losses due to extreme events in terms of the percentage of their agricultural output, at up to 10 percent.

Asia is the worst-hit region, sustaining 45 percent of total agricultural losses due to disasters, and losing the equivalent of four percent of its agricultural output.

Horn of Africa nations that are regularly impacted by drought lost an average of 15 percent of crop production.

Island developing nations have also been particularly hard hit, sustaining losses of seven percent of their agricultural output.

- Women at greater risk -

Women are also hit harder than men.

"That's because of resource constraints and structural constraints that women face in accessing things like information, financial instruments, the resources that they need to prepare to respond to or recover from disaster events," said the report's author, Zehra Zaidi.

In Pakistan, where women account for 70 percent of farm labourers, it was shown after floods that men found other work much easier than women.

Lack of sufficient data kept the FAO from calculating losses to fishing and forest production.

Despite the increasing frequency and intensity of disasters, it is possible to reduce risks to agriculture.

"There is no one size fits all solution," said the FAO's Conforti, but "there are a range of practices that can enhance the resilience of agricultural systems."

That includes agronomic techniques such as using different plant varieties and different methods to prepare the soil, as well as creating and improving warning systems.

When locusts invaded the Horn of Africa region in 2020 and 2021, early warning provided the time necessary to treat 2.3 million hectares (5.6 million acres) in the region and nearby Yemen.

Some $1.77 billion in losses in grain and dairy production was saved, the FAO estimates.

Moreover, it was extremely cost-effective, with each dollar invested in prevention measures resulted in $15 of avoided crop losses.

Related Links
Farming Today - Suppliers and Technology

Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters
Tweet

RELATED CONTENT
The following news reports may link to other Space Media Network websites.
FARM NEWS
Beer faces unbitter future due to climate change: study
Paris (AFP) Oct 10, 2023
Climate change threatens the cultivation in Europe of aromatic hops which gives beer its bitterness, according to a study published Tuesday in Nature Communications. European varieties of hops are prized and used by brewers around the world, but rising temperatures and less rain are reducing yields and the concentration of the compounds that provide beer its refreshing tartness. The researchers observed this trend by analysing data from five sites in the Czech Republic, Germany, and Slovakia, wh ... read more

FARM NEWS
Nepal quake sparks revival of traditional craft skills

Afghan rescuers still digging as hope fades for quake villagers

Chinese scientists join Fukushima water review

Brazil's Lula calls to protect children in Israel-Gaza war

FARM NEWS
Physicists coax superconductivity and more from quasicrystals

$9.5 bn of key metals in overlooked electronic waste: UN

Spire Global selected by accelerate digitalization across the maritime industry

Making more magnetism possible with topology

FARM NEWS
How an ancient society in the Sahara Desert rose and fell with groundwater

'If we bathe, we won't drink': Gazans struggle as water supplies dwindle

Hong Kong adds two shark families on controlled trade list

Tens of thousands of endangered sharks and rays caught off Congo

FARM NEWS
Over 40 percent of Antarctica's ice shelves reduced in volume over 25 years

The village at the end of the world

WWF urges end to deadlock on new Antarctic reserves

Glacial lake floods: a growing, unpredictable climate risk

FARM NEWS
Burp tax causes pre-poll stink with New Zealand farmers

EU fails to decide on glyphosate use extension

Disasters cause $3.8 trillion in crop losses over 30 years: FAO

Measuring nutrition in crops from space

FARM NEWS
Magnitude 5.2 earthquake shakes Philippine capital: USGS

Afghans flee western region after fresh earthquake kills two

Volunteers dig for Afghan quake survivors as aid trickles in

Death toll from 'unprecedented' Afghan quakes doubles to 2,000

FARM NEWS
Mali's junta says departure of UN troops will not be delayed

S.Africa recalls peacekeepers accused of sexual abuse in DRC

Chad agrees transit for France's Niger troop withdrawal

Nigeria air strikes kill around '100 bandit fighters'

FARM NEWS
Does a brain in a dish have moral rights?

Fears for ancient Cyrene after Libya floods

Need to hunt small prey compelled humans to make better weapons and smarten up

Hong Kong's top court rules to recognise same-sex partnerships

Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2024 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. All articles labeled "by Staff Writers" include reports supplied to Space Media Network by industry news wires, PR agencies, corporate press officers and the like. Such articles are individually curated and edited by Space Media Network staff on the basis of the report's information value to our industry and professional readership. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Statement Our advertisers use various cookies and the like to deliver the best ad banner available at one time. All network advertising suppliers have GDPR policies (Legitimate Interest) that conform with EU regulations for data collection. By using our websites you consent to cookie based advertising. If you do not agree with this then you must stop using the websites from May 25, 2018. Privacy Statement. Additional information can be found here at About Us.