eLearning Series: Agricultural Risk Management
Why these courses?
Understanding risk and its management play a central role in boosting the agricultural sector, food security, and the broader economy of developing countries. Stakeholders, including farming households, value-chain actors and policymakers need to be capacitated about and participate in the holistic assessment of agricultural risk, the development and implementation of management strategies. These courses seek to provide the necessary technical knowledge to: 1) understand the agricultural risk environment at the farm level and across the agricultural value chain; and 2) learn about the methodology for assessing and prioritizing risks, identifying the right tools and implementing a holistic risk management strategy in developing country context.
Who are these courses for?
The courses target farmers and farmers’ organizations, development practitioners dealing with agricultural risk management programmes/projects, operators in the agri-food value chains and service providers, policy makers and government officials, operating in the agricultural sector and beyond, affected by agricultural risks.
About the courses
Course 1. Understanding the Risk Environment in Agriculture
Agriculture is a risky sector. Extreme weather conditions, pests and diseases and market uncertainties are just a few examples of events that can negatively affect farming activities, posing a major threat to households’ livelihood and food security. This course will present an overview of concepts linked to agricultural risk management, describing which risks farmers face, within a holistic approach that covers the entire agri-food system.
Course 2. Assessing risk in agriculture
Risk assessments are prepared to develop a holistic risk management strategy. Assessing risks involves knowing how likely it is that each possible risk would occur, and what is their expected impact in terms of farm production or income losses. This course will look at what is needed to assess and prioritize risks including assessment methods – qualitative and quantitative – used at micro, meso and macro levels.
Course 3. Agricultural risk management tools
Risks in agriculture arise from a variety of sources. There are several risk management options that can be used to either mitigate, transfer or cope with risks in agriculture. Choosing the most appropriate tool depends on various factors such as the type of risk, tools availability, and level of responsibility. This course focuses on what can be done at the farm, local area/community, and national levels to manage risks in agriculture.
Course 4. Agricultural Risk Management Strategy, Policy and Mainstreaming
Responding to risk requires developing strategies that combine different risk management tools as well as policies and programs to address constraints and broader issues that create the context in which risks occur. This course will present the role that major stakeholders in the agri-food system can play to design Agriculture Risk Management (ARM) strategies and make them effective and sustainable.
Key partners
These courses are the results of the learning needs assessment workshop held in IFAD HQ in Rome in July 2015 that enabled the design of a comprehensive curriculum entitled: “Agricultural risk assessment and management for food security in developing countries”. The curriculum was designed collaboratively, involving a number of partner institutions and international experts, in particular with the European Commission (EC), Agence Française de Développement (AFD), Italian Directorate-General for Development Cooperation, KfW Development Bank, BMZ, and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD).
How to access the courses?
The courses are available through the FAO elearning Academy, which offers a number of multilingual e-learning courses and educational resources, free of charge, as a global public good. To access the courses, you can register for free on https://elearning.fao.org/ and select the category “Agricultural risk management and resilience”.
Learn more about Agricultural Risk Management…
The curriculum was used by PARM, in partnership with NEPAD, to generate training packages for face-to-face training and seminars and for integration in local university and extension services programmes, as part of its broader capacity development strategy.
Managing risk at the farm level
These materials are designed for short training aiming at raising awareness and providing basic knowledge on ARM. It mostly targets agricultural service providers and researchers (as trainers), and farmers and government officers (as trainees). Learn more
Agricultural Risk Management for Food Security in Developing Countries: a Learning Course for practitioners
The four modules provide a training material targeting extension service workers on the advanced theoretical framework of agricultural risk management. It is thought to be used in short or long advanced training aiming at developing expertise on ARM. Learn more