Managing catastrophic risks in agriculture

The article addresses the issue of catastrophic risks in agriculture – that is, events with a low probability of occurrence but with a high potential to cause various types of damage. Its primary aim is to provide an overview of these risks and the instruments available for their management. This objective is pursued through answering four research questions. The aim and the questions serve to support the thesis that catastrophic risks can, to a certain extent, be managed if certain conditions are met. Structurally, the article is closest to a monographic-review study. The set of examined partial problems reflects the author’s accumulated knowledge gained over more than 25 years of work on risk in agriculture and the food sector. The literature was selected using a combination of manual techniques and a simplified snowba l l ing ba ckward technique. The analysis conducted led to three conclusions: (1) instruments for managing catastrophic risks are already potentially available to farmers, for example in the European Union (EU), but their actual use faces a number of barriers; (2) globally, ad hoc disaster assistance is widely applied, although this could be rationalised through the implementation of holistic catastrophic risk management; (3) the development of the insurance and financial markets, along with their integration and globalisation, is constantly expanding the possibilities for commercially insuring catastrophic risks (without budgetary subsidies). Key words: holistic risk management, catastrophic risks in agriculture, agricultural insurance.