Impact

Agricultural losses consistently constitute a significant proportion of total economic losses over the years, regardless of the value of total losses incurred, as evidenced by data from countries which report both types of losses. The significance of this share underscores agriculture’s importance for the economic development of many countries across the globe, its innate interactions with the environment and its direct reliance on natural resources. Urgent and ambitious action is needed to build more resilient agricultural systems, which are currently bearing the brunt of economic losses due to disasters.

Key results

Vulnerable populations, including smallholder and subsistence farmers, pastoralists, fisherfolk and wage labourers, bear the brunt of increasingly frequent disasters and the resulting economic losses.

Data from 22 countries on both direct economic losses attributed to disasters and losses in the agricultural sector is available for 2021. During this year, agricultural losses constituted USD 19.6 billion of the total direct economic losses, amounting to USD 113 billion in these countries. Wide variations exist in disaster loss data across time and regions, as they are greatly influenced by large-scale catastrophic events. Furthermore, the number of countries that report data on both economic and agricultural losses from disasters varies significantly across the years, and may be one factor affecting the values of the losses reported overall. These data gaps on the impact of natural hazards and disasters, especially in developing countries, must be addressed to inform appropriate risk reduction policies and investments that build the resilience of the agricultural sector.

Highlights

Capacity development

Methodology

Tier: II

Data

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