Recognising and addressing risk and vulnerability constraints to pro-poor agricultural growth

Risk and vulnerability (R and V) are becoming important in agricultural development due to an increase in the risk of agriculturalists and the social protection and production implications of reducing R and V through sectoral policies and poverty reduction processes. Agricultural development plans, however, rarely consider R and V.

This paper aims to introduce the concepts of R and V and to provide a practical classification of these constraints. It also presents the main evidence and arguments on whether and how R and V can be addressed within the agricultural sector.

The paper firstly categorises agriculture-related risk into four main groups related to: market performance; input and market access; labour markets; and environment-related factors. It also categorises the rural poor to identify individuals affected by different kinds of risks and their traditional coping mechanisms. This paper argues that agricultural public policy can complement the R and V - reducing options already available to the poor from within agriculture through the creation of communal and individual assets, local value-addition, storage and marketing facilities, management of buffer stock and reduction of transaction cost through regulation, legislation and technology policy.

The analysis of policies within this article is extended vertically to cover policies at a higher level by including international trade policies and national policies. The analysis is also extended horizontally to cover different sectors. The difference between agricultural policies that mainstream R and V reduction successfully from conventional approaches is also highlighted.

Despite significant analysis of R and V constraints in the agricultural sector, the paper enumerates a number of major areas of debate such as:

• the potential for complementarity between different development policy approaches
• on the efficacy of targeted approaches
• nature of trade-offs and how they can be addressed
• addressing location-specific conditions
• prioritising and funding R and V reduction.

 It also highlights certain knowledge gaps such as:

• practical analysis of linkages between social protection, agriculture and gender
• support of private sector in designing R and V reducing tools
• means by which people break out of poverty.

Finally, the general conclusion is that reducing R and V is about improving implementation of existing ideas and practices and also filling the above mentioned knowledge gaps. It suggests that vulnerability will be reduced if assets are retained, created or strengthened. Livelihood diversification away from traditional low-income farm and non-farm activities is also recommended.