Climate Change, Hazard Vulnerability, Food Production, and Food Security in the Caribbean

Abstract

Food security in the Caribbean region cannot be discussed without considerable attention to hazard vulnerability. The Caribbean region is prone to meteorological hazards and other natural disasters such as earthquakes and volcanoes. While the region is prone to extreme seismic events, meteorological hazards occur most frequently and cumulatively cause the most hardship. The region is prone to a host of such hazards with hurricanes getting most of the attention, but droughts, floods, and landslides are all features of Caribbean life. In the past 10 years there has been billions of dollars of agricultural losses due to hurricanes and tropical storms. In Jamaica, for example, a cycle of storms caused losses of J$993 million in 2005 alone (McGregor et al., 2009).