The Economics of Natural Disasters - Implications and Challenges for Food Security

A large and growing share of the world's poor lives under conditions in which high hazard risk coincides with high vulnerability. In the last decade, natural disasters claimed 79,000 lives each year and affected more than 200 million people, with damages amounting to almost US $ 70 billion annually. Experts predict that disasters will become even more frequent and their impact more severe, expecting a five-fold global cost increase over the next fifty years, mainly due to climate change and a further concentration of the world's population in vulnerable habitats. The paper argues that in order to mitigate disaster impact on poor population groups, development policy and disaster management need to become mutually supportive. Focusing on challenges disasters pose to food security, it proposes that in disaster-prone locations measures to improve disaster resilience should be an integral part of food security policies and strategies. It expands the twin-track approach to hunger reduction to a "triple track approach", giving due attention to cross-cutting disaster risk management measures. Practical areas requiring more attention include risk information and analysis; land use planning; upgrading physical infrastructures; diversification and risk transfer mechanisms. Investments in reducing disaster risk will be most needed where both hazard risk and vulnerability are high. As agriculture is particularly vulnerable to disaster risk, measures to reduce this vulnerability, i. e. protecting agricultural lands, water and other assets, should get greater weight in development strategies and food security policies. Investing in disaster resilience involves trade-offs. Identifying the costs, benefits and trade -offs involved will be a prominent task of agricultural economists.Food Security and Poverty, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Projections of resource allocation and production in Korean agriculture with a microeconomic model

노트 : Summer Researcher Workshop of the Agricultural Economics Research Institute (1973 : Seoul, KR

Commercialization of agriculture under population pressure: effects on production, and nutrition in Rwanda

Agricultural policy Rwanda., Produce trade Government policy Rwanda., Exports Rwanda., Nutrition policy Rwanda., Food supply Rwanda., Rwanda Population.,

A platform for a dialogue to be continued. Forward thinking in agriculture and food

International audienceHow can agriculture produce food for 9 billion inhabitants in 2050 and achieve the Millennium Development Goals of alleviating poverty, reducing hunger and protecting the environment? In order to take up these challenges and to design tomorrow's food and agriculture systems, research organizations have to define strategies and options, and public policy makers their priorities from now on, relying on foresight studies. Various studies have been conducted to assess scenarios for the long-term future of food and agriculture in the world. Each one has its own objectives, methodologies, and results. Analyzing, comparing and discussing hypotheses, methodologies and results were the objectives of the FI4IAR/CTA seminar "Thinking Forward: assessments, projections and foresights", organized during the GCARD 2010 process. This dialogue, which sometimes led to scientific disputes, proved productive and encouraging. Is it a forum that should be continued in the future