Impacts of natural disasters on smallholder farmers : gaps and recommendations

Abstract

Lessons from disaster relief situations demonstrate that national governments, aid agencies, and international/non-governmental organizations (I/NGOs) are effective at distributing short-term products to cities. This paper proposes an emergency sustainable agriculture kit (eSAK) framework for disaster relief in rural areas with products that can be combined into packages to address the needs of shelter, hunger, first aid, seeds, preservation of indigenous crop varieties, and post-disaster labour shortages. Products include rolls of agricultural-grade plastics, low-oxygen grain storage bags, waterproof gardening gloves, multi-use shovels, seeds of early maturing crops, fertilizers, inexpensive farming tools, temporary food support, and first-aid kits.