Agriculture bears brunt of disaster impacts: FAO
About a quarter of the damages caused by natural disasters in developing countries, including Bangladesh, is borne by the agricultural sector, according to the primary report of a FAO study.
The primary findings were disclosed yesterday at the UN World Conference for Disaster Risk Reduction held in Sendai, Japan, said a FAO release.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations also announced the launch of a special facility to help countries better equip their food production sectors to reduce risk exposure, limit impacts, and be better prepared to cope with disasters.
Twenty-two percent of all damages inflicted by natural hazards such as drought, flood storms or tsunamis are registered within the agriculture sector, according to FAO's analysis of 78 post-disaster needs assessments in 48 developing countries spanning the 2003-2013 period.
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 study reveals.
FAO's 22 percent figure represents only damages reported via post-disaster risk assessments so the actual impact is likely even higher.
To arrive at a closer estimate of the true financial cost of disasters to developing world agriculture, FAO compared decreases in yields during and after disasters with yield trends in 67 countries affected by (at least one) medium- to larger-scale events between 2003 and 2013.
The final tally was US$70 billion in damages to crops and livestock over that 10 year period.
Asia was the most affected region with estimated losses adding up to US$28 billion followed by Africa with US$26 billion.
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