Agriculture sector
Pragmatically, the world’s agriculture sector is faced with numerous threats. In consequence, feeding the world’s population is becoming an uphill task as this the impacts of the threats keep escalating day by day. Conventional threats to agriculture and food security include agroterrorism, climatic instability caused by global warming and naturally occurring diseases and infestations. For instance, the changes in climatic conditions are having a profound impact on agriculture. On the underscore, diseases and infestations are also taking a toll on food production. It is imperative to note that the prevalence of diseases, infestations and pests is the most severe threat to agricultural production.
Principally, infestations and pests affect agriculture directly by lowering the quality and quantity of agricultural yield. Past research postulates that crop pests and diseases contribute to initial yield losses of upto 26% and secondary yield losses of about 38%. Transboundary pests and diseases quickly spread to different countries and cause outbreaks in epidemic proportions. Resultantly, the upsurges in infestations cause massive losses to crops and threaten the livelihoods of commercial and subsistence farmers. Besides, the prevalence of infestations threatens the food and nutrition security of millions of people.
On the underscore, natural diseases affecting humans have an indirect yet severe impact on agriculture and food security. Admittedly, agricultural productivity is not feasible without the involvement of a healthy working population. Human diseases disrupt agricultural activities and affect supply chains in manifold ways. For instance, the prevailing COVID 19 has posed grim impacts on the world’s agriculture sector. Following the surge in cases of the virus, many governments have issued lockdown guidelines that have negatively affected farm operations and led to disruptions in supply chains.
On the underscore, practices of agricultural terrorism such as intentional tampering or contamination of food supplies is also a threat to the agriculture sector. Remarkably, contamination of food supplies not only affects the specific animal or plant food chain but also impacts public confidence in a particular product. In extreme cases, it affects a country’s trade of agricultural products with the rest of the world. In most cases, the perpetrators of agroterrorism are usually malicious terrorists who intent to cripple the economy of a country and undermine its social stability. Additionally, political groups can also engage in intentional contamination of food supplies in order to advance their political agenda.