The poor in rural areas face economic risks that differ substantially from groups with other economic, demographic, and environmental characteristics. Even though some urbanites may be as poor individually as their rural cousins, infrastructure and other public goods provide them with insurance against exogenous shocks of all kinds, including adverse weather, other national disasters, disease, as well as against certain kinds of political and economic exploitation. In response to their vulnerability, smallholders have developed strategies for (ex-ante) risk management and (ex-post) risk coping. Policies that seek to assist smallholders to cope with shocks can be more effective if they build on their own capacity for adjustment and facilitate this constructively rather than attempting to re-establish initial conditions. In this research brief, we evaluate the risk of stock losses to Viet Nam poultry producers arising from HPAI outbreaks and control measures.
