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Extreme weather events, and climatic anomalies, have major impacts on agriculture. Of the total annual crop losses in world agriculture, many are due to direct weather and climatic effects such as drought, flash floods, untimely rains, frost, hail, and storms. High preparedness, prior knowledge of the timing and magnitude of weather events and climatic anomalies and effective recovery plans will do much to reduce their impact on production levels, on land resources and on other assets such as structures and infrastructure and natural ecosystems that are integral to agricultural operations. Aspects of crop and livestock production, as well as agriculture’s natural resource base, that are influenced by weather and climatic conditions include air and water pollution; soil erosion from wind or water; the incidence and effects of drought; crop growth; animal production; the incidence and extent of pests and diseases; the incidence, frequency, and extent of frost; the dangers of forest and bush fires; losses during storage and transport; and the safety and effectiveness of all on-farm operations ().

In many countries, drought is responsible for the greatest loss of agricultural production. For example, in the United States, drought was the predominant source of indemnities paid because of crop losses between 1970 and 2003. These losses totaled more than $15 billion (USDA/RMA). In China during the period from 1949 to 2000, drought affected an average of 21 million hectares. More than 60 million tons of grain was lost in China as a result of the drought of 2000, the highest loss in 51 years (). Recent droughts in Europe, Brazil, Mexico, Australia, Southern Africa, and many other regions have also resulted in devastating impacts in the agricultural sector. With growing pressure on water and other natural resources because of population increases and other factors, there is an increasing need to reduce both the impacts of drought on agriculture and other sectors and the demand for government- or donor-sponsored drought assistance programs. These programs are costly and largely ineffective in reducing societal vulnerability to future drought episodes.

In sub-Saharan Africa, 90% of agricultural production is rainfed and only 10% of the arable land is irrigated. At the same time, the continent is susceptible to inter-annual rainfall variability. These statistics strengthen the argument that weather and climate are one of the biggest production risk and uncertainty factors impacting on agriculture systems’ performance. The Southern African region faces well-documented challenges in maintaining and improving food security in the face of multiple stresses. Climate stress in particular has compromised the ability of the region’s agricultural sector to sustain production. Such a situation is particularly concerning in the light of the projected climate stress under future climate change due to, for example, the increasing frequency of extreme precipitation events (). The paper discusses the use of integrated sustainable agriculture in Africa that takes into account preparedness, monitoring, assessments, mitigation and adaptation that address issues of extreme climatic events including severe droughts, floods and cyclonic systems. The paper also discusses efforts in the use of improved climate knowledge and technology, including monitoring and response mechanisms to current weather to reduce the uncertainties in agrometeorological risks.

In the four coping strategies that can be distinguished as disaster preparedness, mitigation practices, contingency planning and responses, and disaster risk mainstreaming (see ), we have reduced every strategy to certain aspects of preparedness. In this view, challenges to coping strategies are challenges to preparedness strategies; with respect to the hazards and the vulnerabilities that together lead to the disasters producing risks and their consequences and with respect to the uncertainties producing possible damages (see also Medury in ).

South America is one of the regions in the world, most exposed to a wide range of hydro-meteorological hazards, according to the EM-DAT, an international database on disasters, that the Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) is in charge of. The Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) estimates that between 1980 and 2005, almost 80% of the natural disasters, 30% of the loss of human life and 75% of economic loss that took place in the Region were caused by hydro-meteorological conditions and hazards.

The Indian subcontinent has been exposed to disasters from time immemorial. The increase in the vulnerability in recent years has been a serious threat to the overall development of the country. Subsequently, the development process itself has been a contributing factor to this susceptibility. Coupled with lack of information and communication channels, this had been a serious impediment in the path of progress. India’s vulnerability to various disasters has led to mounting losses year after year. Mammoth funds were drawn to provide post disaster relief to the growing number of victims of floods, cyclones, droughts and the less suspecting landslides and earthquakes.

The climate system in the southwest Pacific provides a large source of interannual to multidecadal fluctuations beneath a theme of regional climate warming. These provide challenges especially to coping strategies for agrometeorology in the region. The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) provides a large source of seasonal to interannual variability across the region promoting seasons of floods and droughts, and warmer and cooler seasons at higher latitudes ().

Agriculture is one of Europe’s largest land users and as such highly dependent on environmental conditions. Inter-annual climate variability is one of the main sources for uncertainty in crop yields. In the EU-25, 162 million hectares are under agricultural use, which amounts to roughly half the Union’s land. Farming plays a key role for the health of economies in rural areas, and continues to be a determinant of the quality of the countryside and the environment, although it has become less important for the national economies. The contribution of the agricultural sector to the GDP of EU-25 was around 1.6% in 2004. Regionally and nationally, however, the contribution may be substantial, particularly in southern and central European countries where agriculture represents a more significant sector for employment and GDP.

The global food and fiber system — from the producer to the final consumer — is subject to a wide range of risks and uncertainties. Extensive research has been published in the fields of Economics and Agricultural Economics on every aspect of risk and uncertainty as it relates to agriculture, ranging from theoretical to highlyapplied. Within the realm of applied research, much of the effort has been to provide producers with a framework for managing risk

Weather and climatic conditions are the most important production factors for agriculture. Farmers within any agroecosystem therefore try to adapt to these conditions as much as possible (; ). Farm technologies play a major role in this adaptation process in both the short and the long term. Farm technologies are optimized for different purposes such as maximizing food production or profit. There is an urgent need, however, for such aims to be directed to permit sustainability of food production at the local level, which can be based only on stable agroecosystems (Fig.10.1). This has to be the basic strategy for the long term as important resources for agricultural production such as water, land and soil resources are highly limited in our world. Moreover, these resources are also endangered in many regions by desertification and climate change.