Training Material

Assessing value chain risks to design agricultural risk managment strategies: A practitioner's toolkit

This toolkit provides step-by-step guidance to perform an Agricultural Value Chain Risk Assessment Study (AVC-RAS) at the country level. The goal of an AVC-RAS is to rigorously assess and prioritize the major risks affecting actors along agricultural value chains and to identify the actionable components of an integrated risk management strategy for the value chain, using a gender lens throughout. This toolkit provides examples and tools for conducting a general AVC-RAS with a focus on managing risks in agricultural production systems and improving value chain resilience at national scales. Assessing and prioritizing risks is a main component of a good risk management strategy and can generate awareness and a shared view of risks. There are many components in combining an identified value chain approach with a holistic agricultural risk assessment. Considering multiple actors and risks, their complex relationships, and the potential effects of diverse events on individual actors and larger systems is important. Integrating different sources and types of data for more informed and robust decision-making rocess is also needed. This toolkit provides a structure and tools to deal with these inherent intricacies in an AVC-RAS, recognizing that assessment teams need a high level of flexibility and practicality to deal with the specific conditions in each AVC-RAS.