When it comes to preserving crops and agricultural livelihoods, “silent disasters” often go un-reported and can be more numerous and more destructive than hurricanes or floods.

That’s the view of Anna Ricoy, a South American-based officer specializing in disaster risk, with the Food and Agriculture Organization.

She was speaking after a High Level side event on building resilience, at the Fifth Regional Platform for the Disaster Risk Reduction in the Americas, taking place in Montreal, Canada.

Ms Ricoy, who is based in Chile, said that a global FAO study showed that 80 per cent of the corrosive effects of drought, were absorbed by the farming sector.

She told Matthew Wells that small-scale farming was highly vulnerable to all kinds of disaster.

Duration: 3’11”