How do earthquakes affect agriculture

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Earthquakes impact on food security and agriculture-based livelihoods through:

  • loss and injury of family members and workforce
  • loss of crop yields and livestock
  • damage to irrigation systems
  • damage to people’s homes, animal shelters, stock areas and business premises

Common damages include crop destruction in fields, destabilization of soils and ground support, damages to root systems, redistribution of aquifer resources or watersheds, disruption or destruction of irrigation systems, and loss of livestock.Jul 17, 2019

Full
Answer

How do earthquakes affect food security and agriculture?

Farm commodities face severe losses from disruptions in production, harvest, product quality, transport, processing and marketing services caused by earthquakes. The livestock industries also raise animal welfare concerns in addition to economic losses.

How do earthquakes affect rural areas?

Earthquakes impact on food security and agriculture-based livelihoods through: loss and injury of family members and workforce. loss of crop yields and livestock. damage to irrigation systems. damage to people’s homes, animal shelters, stock areas and business premises.

What are the effects of earthquakes?

 · The earthquake had a serious impact on the livelihoods of rural farmers as massive damage and losses occurred to crop lands, physical infrastructure, polyhouses, …

How do natural disasters affect agriculture?

This affects food security and causes additional disruptions throughout the value chains. Such disasters may slow overall economic growth, especially where agriculture and food production …

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How can natural disasters affect agriculture?

Agricultural impacts from natural events and disasters most commonly include: contamination of water bodies, loss of harvest or livestock, increased susceptibility to disease, and.


Can earthquakes ruin crops?

Earthquakes sometimes trigger tsunamis, landslides and occasionally volcanic activity. The results can include injury and loss of family members and workforce, damage to irrigation systems, loss of crops and livestock, and damage to infrastructure.


What is the impact of earthquake on crops and local products?

Earthquakes impact on food security and agriculture-based livelihoods through: loss and injury of family members and workforce. loss of crop yields and livestock. damage to irrigation systems.


How does natural disasters affect food supply?

Consequently, this has an impact on market access, trade, food supply, reduced income, increased food prices, decreased farm income and employment. Natural disasters create poverty, which in turn increases the prevalence of food insecurity and malnutrition. It is clear that disasters put food security at risk.


How do earthquakes affect plants?

Earthquakes can change land ecosystems in many different ways. Earthquakes can also create long-lost species of plants to bloom. Let’s say that the epicenter of an earthquake is near a forest. The earthquake can knock down those trees, and that allows the sunlight to penetrate the canopy.


How the hazards affect farmers?

Farmers and farm workers suffer from increased rates of respiratory diseases, noise-induced hearing loss, skin disorders, certain cancers, chemical toxicity, and heat-related illnesses.


How do earthquakes affect animals and plants?

In 2016, a major earthquake wiped out whole animal communities, sending impacts reverberating up the food chain. Earthquakes can disrupt sperm whales’ ability to hunt for up to a year, according to the first-ever study to look at the effects of the temblors on marine mammals.


How do earthquakes impact the environment?

Earthquake environmental effects are the effects caused by an earthquake, including surface faulting, tsunamis, soil liquefactions, ground resonance, landslides and ground failure, either directly linked to the earthquake source or provoked by the ground shaking.


What is agriculture disaster?

Definition. Violent, sudden and destructive change in the environment either affecting or caused by land cultivation or the raising of crops or livestock.


How does earthquake affect food security?

Earthquakes impact on food security and agriculture-based livelihoods through: loss and injury of family members and workforce. loss of crop yields and livestock. damage to irrigation systems.


How do floods affect agriculture?

Erosion and soil displacement from flooding can ruin fields and destroy crops. Erosion washes the fertile top soil away which leaves crop plants with nowhere to set roots. Sand, gravel, and rocks deposited by flood waters can smother and destroy exposed crops.


How do natural disasters affect natural resources?

Pollutants from flooded industrial sites caused hazardous chemicals to enter untreated into project sites, groundwater, watersheds and the oceans. Other disasters such as wildfires, floods, and tornadoes can completely defoliate forests and cause other types of structural changes to ecosystems.


What are the natural disasters that affect agriculture?

Natural Events and Disasters. Every year natural disasters, such as hurricanes, floods, fires, earthquakes, and tornadoes, challenge agricultural production. Because agriculture relies on the weather, climate, and water availability to thrive, it is easily impacted by natural events and disasters. Agricultural impacts from natural events …


What are the long lasting effects of agriculture?

These impacts can have long lasting effects on agricultural production including crops, forest growth, and arable lands, which require time to mature.


How does agriculture help communities?

Agriculture plays a critical role in helping communities to recover from natural disasters while developing a sustainable and food-secure future. FAO, in collaboration with Governments and its NGO partners, provides emergency assistance to earthquake-affected families through the provision of key farming inputs, rehabilitation of rural infrastructure and training of farmers.


What are the activities of FAO?

To create a more solid link between short and long-term emergency responses, FAO also implements sustainable agricultural activities such as seed multiplication, sustainable watershed management, water and soil conservation, food processing and the farmer field school approach. These activities help create sustainable livelihoods so that farmers will become more resilient to future emergencies.


Why did the FAO help Haiti?

Because the Haiti earthquake caused severe damage to cities, FAO also distributed seeds and fertilizers, as well as water pumps to help urban families start home vegetable gardens. In addition to helping people rebuild their livelihoods, FAO also supported the integration and resettlement of displaced populations.


How does disaster affect rural farmers?

The loss of livelihoods and property caused by disasters significantly reduces the purchasing capacity of rural farmers in developing countries [ 12, 65 ]. An individual product may be needed in large numbers, so it must be low cost. If a product is inexpensive, farmers can also afford to purchase it by themselves.


What are the natural disasters that affect farmers?

Earthquakes, landslides, flood, drought, fires, and hailstorms are some of the natural calamities that occur every year, at any point, and anywhere, causing threats to the livelihoods of smallholder farmers and their food security. Disasters can cause loss of human and animal life, field crops, stored seeds, agricultural equipment/materials, and their supply systems (e.g. infrastructure) as well as associated indigenous knowledge, thus disrupting not only the immediate growing season but also future seasons [ 1, 2 ]. Rural regions of the developing world can be remote, with high concentrations of mass poverty [ 3, 4 ], food insecurity [ 4 – 6 ], and illiteracy [ 4, 7 ]; hence access to food, shelter, and communication related to relief and recovery is a challenge after a disaster. In rural areas, farmers strongly rely on natural resources [ 8, 9] and have no alternative source of income or employment, making them more vulnerable to a crisis. Women and children, those most responsible for on-farm labour in developing countries, are most affected by post-traumatic stress after a disaster [ 10 ]. After disasters, intense media focus occurs on the cities where the images are most dramatic, whereas the needs and issues of rural farm families are often neglected [ 11, 12 ]. Apart from disasters that occur directly in rural areas, damage to cities also impacts rural families, as urban-to-rural migration causes food shortages and the consumption of planting materials as occurred after the Haitian earthquake in 2010 [ 2 ]. All these factors may lead to a long-term disaster in rural areas as witnessed in Haiti [ 13, 14 ]. Therefore, after a natural disaster, rural areas require emergency interventions to maintain livelihoods and food security [ 14, 15 ], and a longer-term integrated recovery plan [ 16] to minimize the possibility of a secondary disaster, as inexpensively as possible given limited local financial resources.


How many people were affected by the Ethiopian famine?

Over 1.5 million metric tons of emergency foods were distributed at the height of the Ethiopian famine, reaching an estimated 7.1 million people, by more than 60 organizations directly working in the region [ 59 ]. However, food aid programmes were not able to meet the demand (quantity and composition) and faced major obstacles in logistics and targeting to the vulnerable rural population [ 20 ]. The crisis was further escalated by the government’s unwillingness to deal with the widespread famine, inappropriate handling of the relief materials (i.e. policy of withholding food shipment to rebel areas), and failure of the government’s relocation plan (i.e. villagization) due to insufficient water, schools, medical services, and utility supply points; this caused millions to lose their lives and millions more to be displaced from rural areas [ 57 ].


What is the food crisis in Ethiopia?

The East African nation of Ethiopia has suffered heavily from food crisis for over 50 years due to recurrent disasters such as drought, in particular the 1983–1985 famine in northern Ethiopia that led to 400,000 deaths , combined with two decades of conflicts that killed 150,000 people [ 57 ]. The combined effects of famine and internal war led to food shortages in rural areas. The situation further escalated by a weak subsistence-agriculture-based economy, depletion of assets, absence of income diversity, and a lack of alternative coping mechanisms [ 57 ]. The yields of major pulses (e.g. fava bean, lentil, field pea, chickpea, and grass pea) and cereals (e.g. barley) reduced substantially due to high temperatures and low rainfall combined with inadequate land preparation, low seed rates, inappropriate methods of sowing, and lack of weeding [ 58 ]. The heavy reliance on poor cultivars, which are susceptible to climatic extremes, pests, and diseases, also led to widespread crop failure [ 58, 59 ].


What was the impact of the 2001 Gujarat earthquake?

In 2001, the Indian state of Gujarat was rattled by a devastating earthqua ke, which claimed over 20,000 lives [ 54 ]. The households affected by the earthquake were mainly marginal farmers and landless labourers belonging to the schedule castes and schedule tribes. The situation in rural areas was the most severe, as the earthquake happened after two consecutive years of drought [ 55 ]. The preliminary loss to the agriculture and livestock sectors was estimated to be USD 117 million (i.e. 5% of the total assets), nearly 80% of which was in the Kutch district [ 56 ]. The reasons why damage to agriculture and livestock was relatively low included: agriculture was largely rainfed with no perennial crops in the field; there was no/little mechanization thus a low level of capital intensity; and the disaster hit at a time of day when cattle were grazing outdoors [ 56 ]. Production losses were mainly associated with delays in harvesting of the standing crops (e.g. groundnuts, pearl millet, and cotton), labour shortages, and damage to irrigation and grain storage facilities.


How did the tsunami affect Southeast Asia?

Southeast Asia was struck by the most devastating tsunami in modern times, caused by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake in the Indian Ocean, killing more than 250,000 people in a single day [ 48 ]. It affected more than 18 countries from Indonesia to Sri Lanka and India and left more than 1.7 million people homeless. The majority of those killed by the tsunami were poor villagers living in the most vulnerable areas along the coast of Aceh and North Sumatra in Indonesia. The coastal agriculture and fisheries sectors suffered major setbacks [ 49 ]. The estimated damage and loss to the agriculture sector in Indonesia alone was USD 225 million, while the fisheries sector suffered a loss of USD 510 million [ 50 ]. Standing rice, vegetables, plantation crops such as mangroves and tree crops, aqua farms, and livestock were severely damaged. Thousands of boats, fishing nets and gear as well as infrastructure, including ice plants and cold rooms, were damaged or destroyed.


How did the floods affect Pakistan?

Similarly, a tragic and massive flood in Pakistan affected most of the country from north to south, displacing more than 20 million people, and caused rural people to be more food deficit and food insecure [ 12 ]. This disaster also posed a substantial challenge to the provision of health services as a result of damage to >500 health facilities [ 27 ]. Infrastructure such as bridges, electric poles, and telephone towers was washed away, and the resulting loss to the means of communication delayed emergency help from the authorities [ 43 ]. Rural households were more commonly impacted and slower to recover [ 12 ]. The flood severely affected agriculture with an estimated loss of USD 5.1 billion (50% of the total loss), by destroying 2.4 million hectares of soon-to-be-harvested crops (e.g. sugarcane, wheat, and rice) and livestock (mostly cows and sheep) [ 41, 46 ]. Total loss to the livestock sector alone was estimated to be USD 570 million [ 47 ]. There was no earlier warning from authorities, and the villages quickly filled up with water at night which contributed to the massive damage to crops and livestock [ 45 ].


How do natural disasters affect agriculture?

The number and frequency of recorded natural disasters, along with the associated impact and damage to livelihoods and economies (local and national), are increasing significantly. Natural disasters often destroy critical agricultural assets and infrastructure, disrupting production cycles, trade flows and livelihoods means. This affects food security and causes additional disruptions throughout the value chains. Such disasters may slow overall economic growth, especially where agriculture and food production still account for a large share of gross domestic product and employment. Notwithstanding the many efforts at national and international level, there is limited systematic data and information on the impact of disasters and hazardous events in agriculture and its subsectors – crop, livestock, fisheries, aquaculture and forestry. Caribbean and Central America North Africa and Western Asia South America South Asia Linear Trend


How does FAO impact agriculture?

FAO is bridging the knowledge gap by quantifying crop and livestock production losses from disasters in developing countries


What is the drought occurrence data?

Drought occurrence data is based on EM-DAT CRED, including all reported drought occurrences between 2004 and 2015. Agricultural losses from drought, expressed percentage of potential production are calculated based on FAOSTAT production data for droughts affecting over 100 000 people or 10 percent of the national population.


What are the factors that set the sector back?

such as extreme temperatures, storms and wildfires, set the sector back


How much was lost in crop production between 2005 and 2014?

between 2005 and 2014, approximately USD 93 billion was lost in crop and livestock production due to natural hazards and disasters in developing countries


What are the most common disasters that hit SIDS?

The most prominent disasters to hit SIDS are sea surges and storms (up to 80 percent of impact is from climatological and meteorological disasters), followed by floods, tsunamis, earthquakes and landslides.

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