Natural hazard-induced disasters (NHID), such as floods, droughts, severe storms, and animal pests and diseases have significant, widespread and long-lasting impacts on agricultural sectors around the world. Drawing from seven case studies, this joint OECD-FAO report argues for a new approach to building resilience to NHID in agriculture.

This report explores how countries can strengthen the resilience of their agricultural sectors to multiple risks. A shifting risk landscape in agriculture – due to increasing weather variability, natural hazards, pests and diseases, and market shocks – will require public and private actors to consider the risk landscape over the long term, place a greater emphasis on what can be done ex ante to reduce risk exposure and increase preparedness, and prioritise investments that build resilience capacities both on-farm and for the sector as a whole.

This case study describes the Republic of Chile’s approach to building agricultural resilience to natural hazard-induced disasters, particularly climate risks. It outlines two areas of strength, namely: - Chile’s national agroclimatic risk information system – this consists of a series of interconnected platforms, agroclimatic information bulletins, tools and initiatives to monitor, identify, assess and communicate the risks, and; - the country’s capacity development events and training, which support decision making by agricultural stakeholders on how to avoid and reduce the adverse impacts of natural hazard-induced disasters. Furthermore, this case study outlines a variety of financial instruments that are available to fund emergency response and recovery activities in the agricultural sector and to transfer risk through the provision of state subsidies for agricultural insurance.

On top of a decade of exacerbated disaster loss, exceptional global heat, retreating ice and rising sea levels, humanity and our food security face a range of new and unprecedented hazards, such as megafires, extreme weather events, desert locust swarms of magnitudes previously unseen, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Agriculture underpins the livelihoods of over 2.5 billion people – most of them in low-income developing countries – and remains a key driver of development. At no other point in history has agriculture been faced with such an array of familiar and unfamiliar risks, interacting in a hyperconnected world and a precipitously changing landscape. And agriculture continues to absorb a disproportionate share of the damage and loss wrought by disasters. Their growing frequency and intensity, along with the systemic nature of risk, are upending people’s lives, devastating livelihoods, and jeopardizing our entire food system. This report makes a powerful case for investing in resilience and disaster risk reduction – especially data gathering and analysis for evidence informed action – to ensure agriculture’s crucial role in achieving the future we want.

This summary note was prepared by FAO and the OECD at the request of the G20 Presidency of Italy. It compiles and summarizes 18 responses filled by 18 G20 countries to the Presidency’s questionnaire titled Survey on Resilience and Risk Management. The results of the survey were presented to the G20 at the 2nd Agriculture Deputies meeting in July 2021.