Our work provides decision-makers with actionable insights on the scale and factors contributing to crop loss globally.
The Global Burden of Crop Loss combines key knowledge to help policy makers and donors reduce agricultural crop loss, allowing for improved food security.
Our knowledge, coordinated by CABI, is guided by a global team of multidisciplinary experts using the latest data and research from varying disciplines.
Find out more about how we work or get in touch if you’d like to be involved.
The Global Burden of Crop Loss (GBCL)
The problem of crop loss
Up to 40% of the world’s crops are lost to pests and diseases. Meanwhile, we need to increase food production to meet the growing demand for food to ensure food security for current and future generations. Governments, donors and private sectors encounter challenges of limited, inconsistent or unverified data in relation to crop losses, making it difficult to implement agricultural policy and investment decisions.
“…We need packaged information and evidence to convince policy makers of the demand and need to address the issues... The evidence needs to communicate the risks and impact on the economy.” Ministry of Agriculture, East Africa.
Using data for plant health and food security
Working with cross-sector partners, the Global Burden of Crop Loss programme is collating and validating diverse datasets and developing a methodology that will produce rigorous estimates of the scale of losses and the burden that they cause so that…
- Policy makers can make more informed decisions about agricultural policy and investment, enabling them to improve national food security and the welfare and livelihoods of their people.
- The private sector can develop demand-driven, targeted solutions that maximize their return on investment and address the root causes of crop losses; ensuring farmers get the inputs they need.
- Donor organizations can prioritize and target funding based on evidence, resulting in more effective interventions, knowing that their assistance is directed to where it will have most impact.
