This document introduces a toolkit for conducting participatory value chain assessments that consider both food safety and livelihood issues. The toolkit uses a risk-based approach to identify major risks in livestock value chains from production to consumption. It involves participatory activities and discussions to map out production cycles, herd health issues, food selection practices, and risk awareness among farmers and consumers. The goal is to generate information to identify and quantify risks, then test interventions that can improve food safety while protecting livelihoods.
Safe Food, Fair Food: Introduction to the value chain assessment toolkit
1. Safe Food, Fair Food:
Introduction to the value chain
assessment toolkit
Tamsin Dewé
ICARDA-ILRI Training on Tools for Rapid Assessment of Sheep and Goat Value
Chains in Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, 5-8 November 2012
2. Safe Food, Fair Food
Protecting the health of poor consumers
and
Safeguarding livelihoods of poor livestock
keepers and other value chain actors
3. Background
Animal-source foods (ASF) have
high nutritional value
ASF are single most important
source of food-borne disease
80-90% African ASF marketed
informally
However, food safety standards
can be prohibitive
– Restrict market access for
smallholder farmers
– Drives trading underground
4. Risk-Based Decision Making
in informal marketing systems
Clear distinction between risk and hazard!
– Hazard = anything that causes harm
– Risk = probability + consequences
Although hazards are often common in
informal markets, risk to human health is
not necessarily high
Is there an acceptable level of risk?
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5. Safe Food, Fair Food
Risk-based approach to food safety
– Structured way of evaluating and dealing with
risks
– Identifies major risks in
food value chain from farm
to fork (multidisciplinary)
– Identifies most useful
points of intervention
6. Codex Alimentarius framework
for food safety risk assessment
Can it be present in food?
Hazard identification Can it cause harm?
What harm does it cause? How does it get from source to
How does harm depend on victim?
dose? What happens along the way?
Hazard characterization Exposure assessment
What is the harm?
What is its likelihood?
Risk characterization Participatory
methods fit
well
Risk management/
Risk communication
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7. Participatory rural
assessment (PRA)
Can participation improve food
safety?
Engaging producers and consumers
– Consumers previously been neglected
Rapid, practical indication of risks
arising from meat and milk
production
Pre-tested in African context
Performed in conjunction with value
chain assessment
8. Toolkit Topic
Participatory activity
Materials required
Questions to keep in
mind
Guidance for facilitator
-Phrasing
-Step-by-step instructions
Example of data capture
Final comments/check-
up
9. Toolkit
Main areas of interest:
1. ASF production cycle and constraints
2. Herd dynamics and disease burden
3. ASF consumption cycle and constraints
4. Food selection,
management practices
and risk awareness
10. 1. ASF production cycle
How does production vary during the year?
What are the constraints to producing larger
amounts of milk or meat?
Which of these is most important?
What are farmers’ solutions to the constraints?
12. 2. Herd dynamics and disease
burden
How many animals move into and out of
the herd in a year?
Where do they come from?
What happens to them?
Morbidity and mortality rates
Prioritisation of diseases
14. 3. ASF consumption cycle
What is the role of meat or
milk in the diet during the
year?
What is the role of any ASF
in diet quality?
What happens during times
of food shortage?
To what extent are
sheep/goat keepers also
consumers? Photo: Charlie Pye-Smith/ILRI
15. 4. Food selection and
management
How accessible are sheep and goat products?
How do people perceive food quality and safety?
How does this influence consumption?
How do conditions between purchase and
consumption affect nutritional value and food safety?
Who bears the food safety risks or enjoys the
nutritional advantages of this product?
What are some solutions to
improving food safety issues?
16. 4. Food selection and
management
Activity:
– “Njera” diagram 6.00 am 500 ml Milk
delivered to house
– Listing and ranking door by hawker
– Daily calendar/flow 6.01 am 500 ml Milk
taken to kitchen
diagram
6.02 am 250 ml Milk 6.15 am 250 ml Milk
stored in fridge boiled
4.30 pm 250 ml Milk 6.20 milk left to cool
taken from fridge and
boiled
6.00 am 250ml Milk 6.45 am 250 ml Milk
added to tea and drunk by children
drunk (unmixed) before
school
17. What do we get out of it?
Outputs
– ASF production and consumption cycles and
constraints on these
– Food selection and handling practices
– Risk awareness and management
Further work
– Baseline questionnaires and biological
sampling
– Identify and quantify risks
– Test interventions
18. Strategy & Timeline
Initial scoping
Integrated risk Best-bet Dissemination Upgraded
of 4 value
assessment interventions of findings curricula
chains
(yr 1) (yr 2-3) (yr 3) (yr 3)
(yr 1)
Continuous monitoring and evaluation
and impact assessment
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During the first year, an initial scoping of the 4 value chains will help identifying key actors, marketing channels, supply, demand and multiple burdens for animal and human health. A multidisciplinary team in each focus country is currently developing a generic toolbox to assess value chain constraints by using participatory methods, biological sampling and new technologies such as metagenomics. Possible constraints include inputs such as feeds and breeds, services, socio-economics as well as disease in humans and livestock.