Polski
Business and economics, Issue 17/2025
Impact of climate disasters on agriculture and food security
Dec
As a result of natural disasters in the past three decades, agriculture worldwide has suffered losses of $3.26 trillion. The latest report from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) suggests how modern digital technologies can be used to mitigate the damage that threatens the food security of billions of people.
The year 2023 – a page from a catastrophic calendar
The FAO’s The Impact of Disasters on Agriculture and Food Security 2025 report, published this November, highlights the unprecedented accumulation of natural disasters in recent years. As an example, the authors cite 2023, which in the Horn of Africa was the third consecutive year of intense drought – its effects affected some 36 million people. In Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, more than 13 million livestock died due to water shortages.
The drought has also affected South America. In Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, a lack of rainfall combined with record low water levels in the Amazon River have led to crop devastation – soybean and corn yields were up to 40 percent lower than in previous years.
In the same year in Pakistan, a giant flood destroyed nearly 850,000 hectares of farmland, and climate disruption caused by the impact of El Niño caused drought in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi. Locally, corn production fell by up to 70 percent in these countries.
Costs of disasters are rising
The annual losses that agriculture suffers from natural disasters have risen from $64 billion a year in the 1990s to $144 billion. currently. Of the total $3.26 billion in losses, as much as $2.9 billion is the result of climatic events such as
The largest nominal losses in the period under review were incurred by agriculture in Asia ($1.53 billion), due to the agrarian nature of many countries on the continent and their high vulnerability to climatic disasters. In Africa, on the other hand, losses are relatively highest, reaching as much as 7.4 percent of GDP, which in turn is related to the high level of employment in the agricultural sector. In Europe, this ratio is twice as low at 3.6 percent. GDP.
An analysis of the impact of individual events on agriculture clearly shows that the most costly disaster is floods – annual losses in the agricultural sector due to them amount to $1.5 trillion. This is followed by storms ($720 billion), earthquakes ($336 billion), droughts ($278 billion) and heat ($187 billion). The report’s authors stress that the costs of droughts and high temperatures appear to be systematically underestimated.
Empty plates and wallets
To better illustrate the scale of the problem, FAO experts converted agricultural losses into depletion of the human diet. They found that the statistical man loses 320 kcal per day due to natural disasters, with iron deficiency reaching up to 60 percent of the recommended daily intake for men. Vitamin and mineral deficits affect the poorest societies the most.
Agriculture was not the only one affected by climate disasters. F Marine heat waves between 1985 and 2022 affected as much as 15 percent of the world’s fisheries and caused $6.6 billion in fisheries losses. Fishing and aquaculture, meanwhile, are a source of livelihood for 500 million people worldwide.
How modern technology can support agriculture
The answer to increasing losses may lie in modern technologies and digital tools that will revolutionize the monitoring process in agriculture. Special digital platforms collect and transform raw data on climate, soil condition and socioeconomic factors into useful operational knowledge. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are playing a dominant role in this process.
Digital technologies provide farmers with real-time information so that instead of reacting to the impact of disasters, they can proactively reduce their risk. For decision-makers, the processed data becomes the basis for planning risk transfer mechanisms, such as mandatory insurance.
The report mentions, among other tools, such as:
- The Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS), an FAO instrument that provides data on factors affecting global food supply and demand;
- DELTA Resilience from UNDRR – a comprehensive system for monitoring loss and damage caused by natural disasters, taking into account social, cultural, health, as well as food security and biodiversity impacts;
- NVIDIA Fourier Forecasting Neural Network, a neural network that generates weekly weather forecasts in just two seconds;
- Soil Mapping for Resilient Agrifood Systems (SoilFER), a project that compiles soil health data with fertilizer recommendations.
Of particular importance in today’s world are early warning systems that help farmers build resilience to natural disasters. The report shows that $1 invested in countermeasures saves $7 in agricultural losses. Unfortunately, the world’s 2.6 billion people still do not have access to the Internet, making it difficult to spread information to the most vulnerable segments of society.
Farmers and fishermen in the spotlight
The report’s authors stress that digital transformation alone is not enough to effectively manage disaster risk in agriculture. The stakeholders themselves – farmers and fishermen – must play a key role in the process. Research shows that a human-centered design (HCD, Human-Centered Design) approach increases the level of adaptation of new technologies and enables them to reach the groups most at risk of natural disasters.
An analysis of past experience from different parts of the world clearly indicates that investment in human competence, solid infrastructure and a stable institutional framework are needed. Only broad partnerships between different stakeholders – public administration, academia, the private sector and farming communities – allow for optimal use of digital technologies, ensuring scalable and sustainable results.
The report also mentions farmers who, by definition, have it harder: women, young people and seniors. Digital innovations open up great potential for them, as long as solutions are tailored to local and individual needs. Natural disasters are difficult to prevent, but their effects can be effectively anticipated and mitigated, to the benefit of global food security.
pic. main: Alberto Cotogni/Pexels
In the article, I used:
FAO. 2025.
