BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC) — A new study by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has found that rainwater harvesting in Jamaica and planting Haitian peas are two of the best practices to cope with natural disasters.

The study also found that planting trees provide some form of protection for cattle in Bolivia as that country coped with natural disasters.

The FAO study analyses good practices to face natural disasters in Jamaica, Guyana, Haiti, Bolivia, Colombia, and seven other countries in the world.

The UN body noted that harvesting rainwater in Jamaica, planting trees as barriers to the hurricanes of Haiti and the use of improved pens to protect alpacas from the cold of the Bolivian altiplano, are some of the practices included in the study titled “Disaster risk reduction at farm level: Multiple benefits, no regrets”.

The study analysed more than 900 farms in 10 countries around the world and showed that on average, improved practices generated two times more benefits than previously used practices, including increases in production and a reduction in damages and losses due to disasters.

It said these solutions do not require substantial investments, making them available to small-scale farmers.

“The study not only demonstrates that prevention is profitable, but also highlights the important role that small-scale interventions at the farm level can play to increase the resilience of livelihoods and promote sustainable development,” said Anna Ricoy, the FAo coordinator of Disaster Risk Management.

The south of St Elizabeth is a highly productive agricultural municipality of Jamaica that suffers dry seasons, prolonged droughts and high temperatures during the summer.

Most of the farmers in St Elizabeth buy irrigation water, but its availability is scarce during the drought. The solution studied by FAO was the introduction of a rainwater harvesting system. The system consisted of catchment basins located in the roofs, a thousand gallon plastic storage tank and a gravity-drip irrigation system.

The FAO said that this practice strengthened the resilience of farmers against drought, allowing them to produce crops during the dry season, prolong the cycle of each harvest and generate additional income. That simple change produced a 131 per cent increase in the net value of tomato production, and a 29 per cent increase in sweet pepper production, the study showed.

In Haiti, peas are one of the most important subsistence crops in the communes of Bainet and Grand Goave, since they have two growth seasons per year. But these small vegetables and the farmers who grow them must face a significant threat from hurricanes annually.

The FAO said that one way to mitigate their impact on crops is to plant live barriers, namely hedges, trees and a variety of very tall grasses (elephant grass), which provide natural protection and stabilise soils. On some farms, farmers combined these “living barriers” with conservation agriculture and agroforestry techniques to improve soil quality, reduce water loss through evapotranspiration and runoff, and improve water infiltration.

“The combination of these techniques allowed farmers to increase the net value of their production by 110 per cent for years without natural disasters, but they also had minor, yet still significant challenges, during hurricane years.

“On the farms affected by Hurricane Matthew in 2016, the net benefits of pea cultivation were 52 per cent higher than those plots that maintained previously used practices.”

The FAO said it has been assisting Bolivian farmers from El Chaco, in southeastern Bolivia, planted trees on their lands because they are situated is an area of arid plains where cattle must face freezing winds, sudden floods and prolonged droughts. It said these situations led to the death of many cattle.

The FAO said planting the trees not only provided fodder for the cattle, but they became a natural protection against the elements, fertilising the land with their leaves and improving the health of the soil with their roots.

“These silvo-pastoral systems produced an increase of 109 per cent in the net benefit of the farms that implemented them, in comparison to those that maintained their previous techniques. They also allowed carbon capture and ensured greater growth of the grasses that the farmer’s livestock live on.”