This article on the Jakarta Post website discusses the factors threatening food production in Southeast Asia:
Apart from the recent storms and typhoons that have ravaged Southeast Asian agriculture and food production since Cyclone Nargis in 2008, it is hard to envisage the climate extremes that affect Southeast Asia, where 30 percent all world rice is produced.
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The Southeast Asian region is experiencing an increase in food losses as a result of climate extremes. The Philippines is hit by an average of 20 typhoons a year, while about six to nine typhoons make landfall every year in both the Mekong River Delta and Red River Delta in Vietnam.
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Very recently, at the end of 2014, typhoon Hagupit slammed into the Philippines, causing damage to crops in the Samar provinces.
In 2013, the devastating Typhoon Haiyan destroyed fish in protected areas, uprooted coconut trees and inundated paddy fields in the Philippines. It is estimated that Haiyan destroyed 170,000 tons of rice ready for harvest. Besides the reduction in food production, the typhoon also caused loss of livelihoods and food stocks.
The Thailand floods in 2011 caused a total rice loss of about 700,000 ha — equivalent to an at least $500 million loss in revenue. In 2008, Cyclone Nargis caused flooding in 24 percent of Myanmar’s rice-growing area. Anecdote suggests that Cyclone Nargis 2008 killed 50 to 75 percent of livestock in most of the affected regions.
To read more about the changing world and what you can do to prepare, visit: www.greatwavesofchange.org
