Artificial meat. Indoor aquaculture. Vertical farms. Irrigation drones. Once in the realm of science fiction, these are now fact. Food production is going high-tech, at least in some places.
But the vast majority of the worlds farmers still face that old, fundamental fact: Their crops, their very livelihoods, depend on how Mother Nature treats them. Over 80 percent of world agriculture today remains dependent on the rains, just as it did 10,000 years ago.
At the 2nd International Conference on Nutrition held in Rome last November, Pope Francis said: God forgives always; men, sometimes; the Earth, never. Mother Nature can be roughand shes getting rougher as our planets climate changes. The consequences for peoples food security and economic wellbeing can be profound when drought, floods, tsunamis or severe weather hit. Beyond the disaster-provoked hunger crises that make newspaper headlines, the development trajectories of entire nations and regions can be seriously altered by extreme events.
Remember: In many developing countries farming remains a critical economic activity. The livelihoods of 2.5 billion family farmers depend on agriculture, and the sector accounts for as much as 30 percent of national GDP in countries like Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Niger and Mozambique, among others.
But it is not only drought, floods and storms that pose a threat to agriculture. Diseases and pests like Small Ruminants Plague, or desert locusts or wheat rusts do as well. Nor is harsh weather the only threat: Wars, economic crises the works of humans frequently wreak havoc on agricultural communities and infrastructure.
Conflicts and natural hazards have always threatened food security. But today we are witnessing their aggravation. Economic losses due to natural disasters have tripled over the last decade and continue to rise. Initial results from a new study of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations show that losses and damage to crops and livestock, fisheries and forestry due to natural hazards accounted for at least 22 percent of the total bill between 2003 and 2013.
Small-scale farmers, herders, fishers and forest-dependent communities, who generate more than half of global agricultural production, are particularly at risk. (These very same people make up 75 percent of the worlds poor, hungry and food-insecure population.)
So how can we ensure food security in a world with ever more people exposed to ever more intense and frequent hazards?
Agriculture itself can provide solutions. It is a main driver for land use changes and can therefore be instrumental in increasing vulnerabilities to natural hazards. At the same time, a more sustainable approach to food production would help us protect the environment and build the resilience of our communities in the face of disasters.
Over the past decade, good progress has been made in fleshing out the concept of disaster risk reduction and its vital contribution to inclusive and sustainable development. Yet more must be done to harness the potential of agriculture in reducing disaster-related risks and to factor agriculture, food security and nutrition into strategies for bolstering the resilience of societies. — José Graziano da Silva
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