Food and Agriculture Organization and Agricultural Droughts - Monitoring and Predicting Agricultural Drought: A Global Study - page 412

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possibility of drought, famine, starvation, or malnutrition exists. With an
imminent food crisis, actions need to be taken as early as possible because
it takes time to mobilize resources, and logistic operations are often ham-
pered by adverse natural or societal conditions, including war and civil
strife. The availability of objective and timely information is therefore cru-
cial. Over the years, FAO has successfully carried out timely interventions
in cooperation with other United Nations agencies, especially the World
Food Programme (WFP).
Several disasters affect agricultural production in many parts of the
world. Agricultural drought, defined and discussed in detail in chapter 1, is
one of the most devastating in bringing about hunger and food insecurity.
Because agricultural droughts recur in many parts of the world, FAO has
been involved in agricultural drought monitoring and mitigation for many
years, as described in the remainder of this chapter.

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A gricultural Drought Monitoring
Different units of FAO monitor drought situations in the world and pro-
vide information for appropriate action in case of an impending food crisis.
These include the Global Information and Early Warning Service (GIEWS;
www.fao.org/giews) in the Economics and Social Department and the En-
vironment and Natural Resources Service (SDRN) in the Sustainable De-
velopment Department.

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G lobal Information and Early Warning System
The GIEWS was established in 1975 during the world food crisis of early
1970s and is now one of the leading sources of information on food pro-
duction and food security for every country in the world, whether they
are members of FAO or not. In the past 25 years, the system has be-
come a worldwide network that includes 115 governments, 61 nongovern-
mental organizations (NGOs), and numerous trade, research, and media
organizations. GIEWS has established a unique database on global, re-
gional, national, and subnational food security. GIEWS aims to provide
policy-makers and relief organizations with the most up-to-date informa-
tion available on all aspects of food supply and demand and provides warn-
ings of imminent food crises so that timely interventions can be planned
and executed.

Th e Environment and Natural Resources Service
The Environment and Natural Resources Service comprises Remote Sens-
ing, Agrometeorology, Geographic Information System (GIS), Environ-
ment, Energy and Organic Agriculture, as well as the secretariat of the
in-house working groups for the international Environmental Conven-