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FAO: Small Farmers Bear Brunt of Climate Change with Big Losses

  • Droughts and floods, increased by climate change, cause huge agricultural losses.

    Droughts and floods, increased by climate change, cause huge agricultural losses. | Photo: FAO

Published 26 November 2015
Opinion

Floods and droughts caused major losses in crop production and livestock globally between 2003 and 2013 as extreme weather events increased.

Agricultural losses and global food insecurity are increasing with the impacts of climate change and the rise in the number of extreme weather events over the past three decades, according to a U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization report released Thursday.

The study of 140 disasters affecting at least 250,000 people each around the globe between 2003 and 2013 found that the agricultural sector suffers over 80 percent of the damage caused by floods and droughts. Most losses are in livestock and crop production.

"This year alone, small-scale farmers, fisherfolk, pastoralists and foresters - from Myanmar to Guatemala and from Vanuatu to Malawi - have seen their livelihoods eroded or erased by cyclones, droughts, floods and earthquakes," said FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva in a statement.

The economic damages the weather events studied caused amounts to an estimated US$1.5 trillion. The annual average of natural disasters during the 10 year period studied at least doubled the number of disasters reported each year in the 1980s, pointing to the increased frequency of extreme weather events with climate change.

OPINION: Direct Action for Climate Justice

The FAO predicts the situation will continue to get worse if agricultural regions do not focus on increasing the resilience of farms and work to boost local food security measures.

In a landmark study in 1998, for example, researchers found that Honduran small farmers using sustainable agroecological crop methods at the time of the disastrous Hurricane Mitch were more resistant to the storm and suffered less damage than conventional farms.

FAO’s Graziano da Silva stressed the importance of “national strategies” for increasing resilience and adapting to climate change in order to mitigate the risks of disasters.

ANAYSIS: Latin America's Future Tied to Sustainable, Subsistence Farming

But some environmental activists argue that the risks and impacts of climate change are too great to simply focus on adaptation, and a global plan is urgently needed to tackle climate change and keep the earth below 2 degrees Celsius of warming. Drastic changes to the global industrial agricultural model, as well as phasing out fossil fuels and reducing emissions, could be part of such global climate action.

The report comes just days ahead of the kick off of the COP21 climate summit in Paris, France, on Monday, where global leaders are expected sign a climate deal. Social movements and progressive governments of Latin American countries, which are among the hardest hit by the impacts of climate change, are urging for a deal based on climate justice that would see the biggest culprits of climate change, wealthy industrialized countries and corporations, help fund a global transition to clean energy.  

IN DEPTH: Latin America's Fight for a Just Climate Solution

Scientists expect climate change to increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as heat waves, droughts, floods, and other disasters.

Developing countries in the global south are hardest hit by climate change and natural disasters.

Tags

United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization Environmental disaster Environment Climate change Agriculture Food


by teleSUR / hg-CM-gp
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