National Crisis and Disaster Management Strategy for Agriculture 2016 - 2025.

This National Crisis and Disaster Management Strategy for Agriculture is a nationwide sectoral document aiming at enabling the Ministry of Agriculture to participate in the national effort to facing crises and disasters of various forms in order to ensure a safe and stable national environment by providing (i) awareness and preparedness to deal with national crises and disasters; (ii) effective participation; and (iii) strengthened capability to counter the effects these crises and disasters.
The Strategy refers to (1) national disasters, including fires, earthquakes, terrorist acts, epidemic diseases, and environmental pollution; (2) national crises, related to unrest and social violence, refugees, energy, drug, and strategic stocks of agricultural and food commodities; and (3) agricultural disasters and crises, including climate change and drought, agricultural marketing crises, frost disasters, and locust.
To help eliminate hunger and food insecurity, the interventions suggested by the document aim at (i) increasing agricultural production with a focus on deficit crops to maintain a strategic stockpile of agricultural and food commodities; (ii) providing support for wheat and barley production to deal with the crisis of the strategic stock of food commodities; (iii) providing and distributing agricultural and food commodities to poor families in cooperation with international organizations; (iv) developing awareness-raising programs on under-nutrition with a focus on the most affected groups; and (v) implementing small projects for the production of staple food at the household level.
In order to make agriculture more productive a sustainable, a number of actions need to be implemented, such as (i) increase agricultural production with a focus on deficit crops; (ii) expand organic farming and use of good agricultural practices; (iii) encourage the cultivation of drought-resistant soils, especially in rain-fed areas; (iv) support research on the production of seeds adapted to drought; (v) strengthen early warning capacity in drought areas; (vi) follow up the program of monitoring the quality of irrigation water; (vii) sensitize and guide farmers to deal with pollution; (viii) promote land reclamation and on-farm water harvesting; (ix) promote energy efficiency projects in the agricultural sector; (x) expand afforestation; (xi) restore the irrigation networks in cooperation with the competent authorities and owners of farms adjacent to the fire; (xii) construct water tanks in forest sites; (xiii) organize and regulate grazing in natural pastures and pastoral reserves; (xiv) strengthen the capacity of veterinary services; (xv) expand programs to immunize livestock from epidemic diseases to cover all diseases; (xvi) maintain artesian wells for watering livestock in the desert; and (xvii) provide devices and equipment for locust detection and control.
More inclusive and efficient agricultural and food systems will be enhanced by (i) providing agricultural and marketing data and forecasting production and prices to farmers continuously to assist them in making production decisions; (ii) interventions to open new markets for agricultural commodities; (iii) directing farmers to link production to local and global demand; (iv) implementing water supply programs for livestock breeders; (v) developing appropriate programs to distribute feed to livestock breeders during the drought; (vi) compensating farmers for eventual damages, i.e. caused by drought, locust, and frost; (vii) establishing insurance programs for livestock breeders; (viii) developing appropriate programs for distributing feed to livestock farmers during the drought; (ix) support livestock breeders providing barley and bran; and (x) training communities surrounding forests to combat fires.
To increase the resilience of livelihoods to disasters, the Strategy envisages (i) promotion of effective actions to reduce the impact of climate change, drought and frost disasters; (ii) strengthening capacities in the field of early warning, response and dealing with affected areas; (iii) expansion of water harvesting projects in desert areas; and (iv) implementing media programs to deal with the crisis related to climate change.