The agricultural sector and with it, the agribusiness industry, has particularly high levels of disaster risk. Disasters in this sector are not only disasters for businesses, large or small, but also significantly affect rural societies, urban households, national and global commodity markets and food security.

In the localities and regions where these investments are being made, already limited access to fertile land by smallholder farmers may be further reduced. In a context of increasingly constrained global food markets, the spread of agribusiness investments into regions with high but poorly understood agricultural drought and other hazards generates risks of future and more severe food price spikes. This poses a greater threat to the food security of households in low income areas than drought itself.

But new practices are emerging that match investment opportunities for private companies with infrastructure and service gaps in under-developed markets, particularly in Africa. Partnerships are developed that aim to increase the productivity and resilience of smallholder farmers, contributing to local and national food security.