Africa Faces Highest Disaster-Related Losses at 7.4% of Agricultural GDP, FAO report

By Benson Ltamely

Africa’s agricultural sector is projected to bear the highest burden of natural disasters with a 7.4 per cent loss of its agricultural Gross Domestic Product (GDP) recorded in the last three decades according to a report released by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO).

This is notwithstanding the lower absolute losses of $611 billion recorded by the continent’s agricultural sector during the same period compared to other regions globally such as Asia which recorded absolute losses of 47 per cent, translating to a total of $1.53 trillion.

According to the report, lower-middle-income countries face the highest relative agricultural losses at 5 per cent of their agricultural GDP compared to both low-income countries (3 percent) and high-income countries (4 percent).

This, FAO says, reveals a critical gap where high exposure and vulnerability combine with limited resilient infrastructure.

Additionally, the report reveals that Small Island Developing States (SIDS) remain among the world’s most vulnerable to disasters such as cyclones, floods and sea-level rise. In the SIDS, despite relatively small agricultural output, disaster-related losses represent a disproportionately high share of agricultural GDP.

Disasters, the report further established, wiped out 4.6 billion tonnes of cereals, 2.8 billion tonnes of fruits and vegetables and 900 million tonnes of meat and dairy between 1991 and 2023. These losses, it found out, translate to a daily per capita reduction of 320 kilocalories, about 16 percent of the average daily human energy needs.

“When disasters destroy 4.6 billion tonnes of cereals around the world over three decades, lead to critical losses of energy and nutrients from the global food supply, and have the potential to disproportionately impact the most vulnerable populations, they strike at the very heart of our mission,” FAO Director-General QU Dongyu said in the foreword to the report.

Despite supporting the livelihoods of 500 million people, losses in fisheries and aquaculture remain largely invisible in disaster assessments even though the report also found that marine heatwaves caused $6.6 billion in losses between 1985 and 2022, affecting 15 percent of global fisheries.