key: cord-0733855-n5ytj4tr authors: Mishra, Ashok; Bruno, Ellen; Zilberman, David title: Compound natural and human disasters: Managing drought and COVID-19 to sustain global agriculture and food sectors date: 2020-09-04 journal: Sci Total Environ DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.142210 sha: dba07f60d398ad837886888b9f3b1c73c6150cf7 doc_id: 733855 cord_uid: n5ytj4tr Individually, both droughts and pandemics cause disruptions to global food supply chains. The 21st century has seen the frequent occurrence of both natural and human disasters, including droughts and pandemics. Together their impacts can be compounded, leading to severe economic stress and malnutrition, particularly in developing countries. Understanding how droughts and pandemics interact, and identifying appropriate policies to address them together and separately, is important for maintaining a robust global food supply. Herein we assess the impacts of each of these disasters in the context of food and agriculture, and then discuss their compounded effect. We discuss the implications for policy, and suggest opportunities for future research. drought depends on the availability of water from storage facilities. Three quarters of the globally harvested land from 1983 to 2009 (454 million hectares) experienced drought-induced yield losses, translating to a loss of approximately $166 billion (Kim et al., 2019) . Nearly 10% of the total land area of the United States was subject to either severe or extreme droughts at any given time during the last century. Several studies indicate that droughts are the most expensive natural disasters to strike the U.S. with wide ranging effects over many sectors, but most particularly agriculture (Mishra and Singh, 2010) . In addition, climate change is likely to impact the spatio-temporal distribution of water availability (Konapala et al., 2020) , including green water availability (Veettil and Mishra, 2020) , which may significantly increase water stress in agricultural lands worldwide. Farmers have the ability to adapt to drought conditions. Adaptations include obtaining access to alternative water sources, modifying agronomical practices ( California showed that farmers adapted through an increased reliance on groundwater, the J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f Journal Pre-proof fallowing of land, and the growing of lower-value crops. As a result of these adaptations, farm income declined by only 4%, and the impact on employment and agricultural prices was modest. The key in both cases was the heavy reliance on groundwater pumping, which came at a major cost to aquifer supplies, and would have posed a threat to the viability of California agriculture had the drought persisted. However, not everyone was impacted the same; some producers and workers in specific sectors and regions in the state were affected substantially. Farmers and farmworkers can lose significantly from drought, mainly severe, long-lasting ones, like the 2001-2009 drought in Australia (Edwards et al., 2009 ). Droughts can have devastating effects on poor developing countries (Morten 2007). Rural areas in many developing countries are producing their own food and feeding nearby cities. With poor harvests, these countries may need to import food, but may lack either the infrastructure or income to do so. Without global trade, local or regional droughts can be catastrophic for the entire food supply (Wilhite, et al., 2007; Mishra et al., 2015) . Severe and prolonged drought may lead to hunger and poverty, depletion of natural resources including deforestation, and ultimately, migration from affected areas and a shift from agricultural production (Gleick, 2014; Blakeslee et al. 2020 ). The combination of limited land and water resources and an increase in extreme weather events will likely pose a significant threat to the sustainability of the agricultural sector. Adaptation strategies must address the likely increased frequency and severity of droughts with climate change (Rodell et al., 2018; Mukherjee et al., 2018 Mukherjee et al., , 2020 . Large epidemics and pandemics may occur randomly and feature great uncertainty, which raises several urgent challenges. The first challenge is to identify the factors driving the pandemic and solutions to control and eliminate it. In particular, research is needed to identify the cause of the epidemic, the factors that affect its diffusion, the testing mechanism to identify victims, and the medical treatments to cure victims and prevent spread. The second challenge comes with implementing the solution. Developing and manufacturing effective tests, establishing procedures for testing, tracing, isolating, and treating infected individuals, and manufacturing and distributing a vaccine, once one is available, is time-consuming. In the J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f meantime, slowing or stopping the spread requires the implementation of social isolation procedures, including the closure of restaurants, bars, and theatres, which can cause disruptions to food consumption, production, and distribution (CDC, 2020). Much of the economic cost of a pandemic may occur during the period of constrained activities before finding a solution or extinguishing the disease (Fernandes 2020). Constrained activities may be due to isolation policies, self-policing, or an economic recession. According to Guan et al. (2020) , most countries aimed to stop the spread of COVID-19 by restricting commercial activities and movement with travel restrictions, lockdowns, and other restrictions on businesses. The study found that countries that acted earlier and implemented more drastic measures were able to shorten the duration of the restrictions and reduce the economic damage. The patterns of the spread of the disease across countries indicate mutual dependency, and the reduction of economic activities and control of the disease in one country benefits others. Most countries have already experienced drastic reductions in GNP, which will likely reduce demand for food away from home and shift consumption from high-value foods and luxury products to necessities (Okrent and Alston, 2012). Even though the COVID-19 pandemic is still ongoing, it has already provided some generalizable lessons on how pandemics can affect the agri-food sector. 1 For example, restrictions on movement among regions and social distancing (shelter-in-place) policies affect the functionality of the food supply chain through short-run shocks to supply and demand in agricultural and food markets. Hobbs (2020) suggests that the introduction of social distancing reduced food consumption away from home (restaurants, schools, events) and shifted consumption towards meals prepared at home. Social distancing also led to panic buying, A compound disaster arises when the adverse consequences resulting from different disaster agents occur simultaneously. Compound disasters can severely weaken the resilience of multiple sectors, including agriculture, energy, and the environment. In this study, the compound disaster impacting agriculture and the food sector is based on a combination of two different agents: drought (natural disaster) and COVID-19 (human disaster). California agriculture is becoming more vulnerable to drought conditions, which combined with climate change and pandemics, reduces its overall resilience. Similarly, the anticipated drought in Texas will significantly affect the farming sector. Both the lockdown and the most arid spring in half a century severely reduced Italy's agricultural production (the third largest in Europe) (Thelocal, 2020) . Across Eastern and Southern Africa, the pandemic is exacerbating food insecurity (EU Science Hub, 2020). This reduction in agricultural production from COVID-19 will likely intensify different food security threats (e.g., conflicts and desert locusts) in East Africa, and the drought that affected Zimbabwe's agricultural output in 2019-2020 will likely trigger an economic downturn (EU Science Hub, 2020). Both pandemics and droughts are shocks that affect agricultural and food systems. The effects of drought are mostly direct through reduced agricultural output. A pandemic, on the other hand, is a shock to the health system mitigated by vaccines or effective cures. Without a cure, societies must adapt through social distancing and travel restrictions, which results in indirect effects on both food supply and food demand through reduced income, social distancing, and restrictions on movement. Societies have experienced drought for millennia and have developed i) long-term adaptation strategies, including the establishment of irrigation systems, water storage, water conservation, and drought-resistant crops, and ii) transportation infrastructure, and trade and aid mechanisms to direct food to where it is most needed. The impacts of these shocks vary across locations due to spatial heterogeneity (e.g. The pandemic is a global problem that affects the supply and demand of food, with impacts all along the agri-food supply chain (Garnett et al. 2020 ). Agri-food supply chains include upstream producers (farmers); intermediaries including processors, wholesalers and retailers; and consumers. Intermediaries may include traditional, small-scale operations and mom-and-pop stores, as well as modern processors and supermarkets. Although the direct effects on farmers are relatively small, mostly through lower output prices and constraints on labor and transportation, traditional food service processors and retailers are losing substantially due to social isolation. Modern processors may adjust more easily to social distancing constraints, and become stronger because of the pandemic. The market share of supermarkets and food delivery systems is likely to increase, with the net effect being a modernization of agri-food supply chains. Drought is mostly local, affecting farmers upstream and their associated intermediaries and farmworkers, which means that wholesalers and retailers linked to the global market, may obtain supply from alternate sources and avoid the worst affects. Societies has developed mechanisms (i.e. dams, J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f water storage facilities, and drought-resistant crops) to adapt to drought and the resilience of different regions may reflect their investment in these adaptation strategies. Vulnerable populations suffer the most from the effects of both pandemics and drought. Traditional food intermediaries and the food service sector rely on a low-income, informal workforce that may lose their income in affected drought regions due to the pandemic and its consequences. Further, farmers with junior water rights are likely to be hit hardest during times of drought. Water systems in many places allocate resources according to rules whereby holders of senior rights gain access to the amount that they are entitled to first (Schoengold and Zilberman 2007) . During droughts, junior rights owners may end up without water, and if there are limited opportunities for water trade, junior rights owners may lose significantly, and will not be able to obtain water to grow their crops. In this case, a safety net policy that provides emergency aid, as well as international aid, needs to be introduced in the same way that it needs to be introduced in the case of a pandemic. Food protectionism and export restrictions on agricultural products stirred by the pandemic make it even more challenging for water-scarce COVID is a zoonotic disease, and such diseases are likely to occur as humans continue to encroach on wildlife habitats. Protecting existing wildlife areas and imposing restrictions on the consumption of bush meat may reduce the risk of future pandemics. Further, increased investments in agricultural and veterinarian research, taking advantage of novel ecological and J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f molecular technologies, combined with improved water use will be most important in increasing agricultural productivity and preventing livestock disease (e.g. the recent African swine fever that eliminated 30% of the Chinese swine population and increased the demand for alternative meats). There are several common challenges in addressing droughts and pandemics. Both disasters feature great uncertainty in the timing of onset, duration, and degree of severity. When experienced together, these uncertainties and disruptions are compounded, which may lead to severe economic stress and food insecurity. We outline four takeaways and policy responses to better manage coupled human and natural disasters in the future. Second, the recovery from droughts and pandemics requires financial and economic relief efforts to allow affected parties to reestablish themselves. Such relief programs are subject to resource constraints, and their design needs to flexibly adapt to specific regional situations and to control for excessive exposure to future disasters (Hazell, Oram, and Chaherli 2001) . The World Food Organization and other relief agencies can provide emergency food aid, but they require J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f financial resources and access to food supplies. Solving regional hunger problems may be subject to concerns about transmitting infection during pandemics. Robust emergency aid programs are crucial for mitigating economic and public health consequences. Third, both droughts and pandemics change food supplies and disrupt supply chains, the impacts of which can be buffered through world trade. Closing borders to trade makes it more difficult for any one country to buffer shocks from a pandemic or drought. The strength of the food supply during this pandemic shows that global supply chains continue to function in spite of isolation policies. Reardon et al. (2020) argue that private intermediaries control more than 90% of food processing and transport in India, and the situation is similar elsewhere. The private traders and intermediaries have the resources and know-how to adapt to most changes, and their willingness to do so has important implications for the fallout of these disasters. Global trade enhances our collective resilience to natural or human disasters, but the public sector must monitor industry performance, including possible price gouging and market power abuse, and identify niches to augment private activities. Finally, modern agriculture is a testimony to the power of science. The introduction of fertilizer, modern breeding, soil management and irrigation has enabled expansion of the human population and a longer life expectancy, with a smaller share of the population working in agriculture (Huffman and Evenson 2008). However, droughts and pandemics reveal human vulnerability and the limits of our knowledge. While these phenomena demonstrate the limits of science, they also suggest the need for further scientific research and the importance of adhering to scientific advice. Scientists have developed the capacity to better predict droughts and they can initiate early warnings to potential pandemics. While science does not have all the answers, governments that rely on scientific advice are likely to better manage human and natural J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f disasters. To better respond to crises like these, science needs to assist in designing risk governance strategies, namely institutions, rules and capabilities that balance central and regional responsibilities to achieve socially improved outcomes (Van Asselt, et. al. 2011 ). Hopefully, these crises will lead to further reliance on science in addressing phenomena such as climate change. Direct effects to yields; regional crop failure. Indirect effects to food consumption, production, and distribution. 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