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In the context of Nyando, with very small land sizes and subsistence agriculture, it is hard to envisage a large investable CSA portfolio. Smallholder farmers and commercial parties tend to see each other as risky partners in business. Building trust and long-term partnerships are the key to success of upscaling CSA investments. From the viewpoint of commercial players, Nyando is considered competitive in drought-resistant crops (sorghum and cassava). Seeds and fertilizers for these crops are an interesting market for the input suppliers. Milling sorghum into flour could add value to their business. It might be profitable for smallholder farmers to turn their sorghum food crop into a cash crop. This business model could be further enhanced with warehousing and with contracts with off-takers, but this requires certain conditions to be met for it to be successful. In the context of Nyando, modest increases in smallholder farmer finance are possible, through two channels. Firstly, through linkages between banks and community savings groups. And secondly, where farmers have access to marketing contracts with off-takers.

To address many societal challenges it is important to improve the resilience of the food system. Research is needed to quantify and analyse the resilience of food systems in different contexts. Is it possible to have a standardised description of resilience of a food system with a measurable set of indicators? To address this question we started by developing an ontology of resilience for food systems based on literature study and using insights from semantic technologies. Our exploration identifies a number of impossible trinities in resilience research on which choices must be made in the definition and measurement of resilience. Our findings are relevant to policy decisions in choosing the proper ‘type’ of resilience and researchers to identify the relevant research problem.

The long-term growth and development of agricultural markets depends on access to a range and volume of capital which, over time, naturally eclipses governments’ ability to provide that capital directly. As private capital markets and financial service providers become involved in the agricultural finance market, the challenge for governments becomes how to appropriately create, incentivize and regulate space for the private sector. As countries move to higher levels of agricultural productivity, more mature agricultural markets, more sophisticated banking systems, and larger farm sizes, the commercial business case for financial service provision emerges. However, this process can take decades and often remains incomplete with some market segments requiring on-going subsidy to attract financial services. Questions remain: How to accelerate the participation of private sector financial service providers while markets are still developing? How to do so in ways that are aligned with national development goals, including transitioning subsistence farmers to viable livelihoods and ensuring domestic food security?This Briefing Note builds on previous analysis of the natural stages of agricultural finance and interrogates more deeply the transition that coun-tries make from government-led to more bank-led agricultural finance. By adding the historical experiences of Mexico, Turkey, and Uganda (as well as other specific initiatives in other coun-tries around the world) to past research by ISF Advisors into the United States, Germany, and South Korea, we gain a greater understanding into the unique approaches that different coun-tries have taken to make this transition. While these approaches are heavily influenced by each country’s macro-level approach to managing the economy, analysis shows the importance of meso-level enablers and more direct micro-level interventions. As we unpack government actions into these different levels and acknowledge the dynamic interplay between the agricultural and finance sides of the market we create a more systemic view of these historical experiences.

Subsistence farmers in rural areas of developing countries are usually outside the current reach of banks and formal microfinance institutions. They do not have access to savings accounts, insurance products, and agricultural credit facilities, limiting those farmers’ investment in agriculture. Being at the outreach of those institutions, those farmers established, so-called savings and loan associations, self-managed groups of 20-30 individuals meeting regularly to provide its members a safe place to save and obtain emergency aid and small loans. When efficiently organized, those associations may provide a secure platform to save and access loans to invest in climate-smart agriculture and mitigate income shocks. The objective of this study is to identify the role of the associations in financing agriculture,major bottlenecks and organizational characteristics that might explain their financial performances.We use survey data from 48 savings and loan associations in rural Tanzania with members trained for adopting climate smart agricultural practices. We identify that 45% of the loans of associations are distributed for agricultural investment purposes and the major bottleneck is to low savings and participation rates, and late repayment or defaults of loans. We find that the size of associations and record-keeping matters. The average amount of loan received per member approximately doubled for associations with twice as many members, and default rates decrease with the accurate financial recording practices. Our findings suggest that savings and loan associations could strengthen the financial resilience of its members by empowering their members through financial record keeping training. At the same time, they can add new members to the associations.

In this paper mainstream and alternative sources of finance inDutch agriculture is analysed. Dutch farmers make use ofdifferent sources of finance whereby bank loans continue toserve as the major source of debt financing. The average bankloan was approximately 740,000 euro per farm in 2015 whileequity amounted 1.8 million euro per farm. Traditional familyloans amounted about 60,000 euro per farm. Recentdevelopments in, and examples of, alternative sources of financeindicate that the diversity will increase in the future, wherebyvarious forms of financing will be used simultaneously. This canalso be of interest for mainstream banks since their fundingcapacity is becoming more restricted as they are required toretain more capital to comply with the Basel Accords. Theprospects for crowdfunding in agriculture are promising forprojects relating to sales in niche markets. The relative lowreturn on equity in agriculture indicates that private equity orventure capital is often not a viable option.

In this report, we investigate the expected effects of reducing the area in which live piglet transports are banned on transmission risk and on the piglet surplus (in the area of the transport ban) during a CSF epidemic in the Netherlands.

In the current report a market outlook for satellite-based RE index insurance is elaborated on. Special thanks for the contributions of Andries Rosema of EARS Earth Environment Monitoring BV and Erik Klaassens of ECORYS Nederland BV. Also the views of experts who were consulted are acknowledged (see for the list of experts Appendix I).

To analyse the disease dynamics in goat herds and to study the effect of control measures, a Q fever transmission model was developed by CVI. With such a model we can study questions like ‘What strategy can lower the incidence of Q fever in goats or even lead to disease extinction?’ and ‘Is vaccination a necessary component of a control strategy?’. For that purpose we first derived a deterministic model for the spread of Coxiella burnetii within a Dutch dairy goat herd housed in a deep litter stable. This model consists of a system of Ordinary Differential Equations (ODEs). Parameter values were based on literature and on-going experimental work, and knowledge gaps were identified. This deterministic model was used to study the Q fever dynamics in the herd without control measures. A sensitivity analysis of the model was performed to study which parameters are most important for the model outcome. Subsequently, a stochastic version of the model was developed to study the effect of separate and combined control and management measures in detail. This was necessary because stochastic processes become important when infected animals in a herd are controlled to very low numbers. The output of that model was subsequently used by LEI to perform a cost-benefit analysis of the control and management strategies. The most important results of the Q fever modelling study are as follows: • Due to the synchronised lambing season in combination with most C. burnetii excretion at partus and abortion, Q fever prevalence shows a saw-tooth pattern within a year. From year to year, a peak is observed in number of infected animals, abortions and infection pressure in year 1-2 after introduction of C. burnetii in the herd. • The epidemiological analyses show that vaccination is effective in quickly reducing the prevalence in a dairy goat flock. Other control strategies have more impact on flock management (more replacement of animals); (re-)infections can than lead to greater outbreaks due to the higher number of susceptible animals in the flock. • When looking at the average time to extinction of the infection and at the infection pressure in a goat flock, the best control strategy is “Preventive vaccination” (i.e. yearly), followed by the reactive vaccination strategies “Vaccination after abortion storm” and “Vaccination after BTM (bulk tank milk) positive”. • When aiming at a fast reduction of the Q fever infection pressure to the environment (like bacterial spores in dust), the strategy “Culling of pregnant animals after abortion storm” is effective. Then, no peak is observed anymore in number of infected animals, abortions and infection pressure in the goat herd. However, Q fever will not go extinct by this measure. • Infected lactating goats excrete C. burnetii bacteria intermittently, and in different amounts. A Search&Destroy method by PCR of milk with a sensitivity of 50% of detecting and culling infected goats, will not result in extinction of Q fever in the flock. This control measure was the worst of the six evaluated strategies. • Next to the reactive strategies, Q fever can be controlled by manipulating the frequency of pregnancy (and thus lambing) of goats. The herd management style “Every year pregnant” is always worse than the other two herd management styles “Every two year pregnant” and “First two years pregnant”. • C. burnetii can survive from breeding season to breeding season as intracellular bacterium in the goat (persistent infection). According to the model, these persistently infected goats are sufficient for the bacterium to survive from year to year in the flock. • The average lifetime of a goat in a Dutch dairy goat flock is 2.7 year. If vaccination will be stopped, within a few years most of the animals in the flock are without immunity against C. burnetii. This susceptible population is very vulnerable for (re-)introductions of Q fever. • During the modelling study, gaps in knowledge were identified, and assumptions had to be made. ¿ The transmission rate, the fraction of infected pregnant animals to become persistently infected and the fraction of C. burnetii excretion targeted to dust could not be estimated with certainty from literature data. Therefore, the infection dynamics in the model was studied for a range of values for these parameters. The parameter values which achieved a high abortion peak in the second season and a lower disease incidence in later seasons were used in the default model. ¿ Infection pressure caused by non-pregnant goats. It is unknown what the effect is of an infection in non-pregnant goats and how many and how long C. burnetii bacteria will be excreted to the environment. Also unknown is the fraction of these goats which becomes immune after acute infection. ¿ Infection pressure caused by spores of bacteria. C. burnetii can survive from breeding season to breeding season as bacterial spore. However, the fraction of surviving spores after one year is unknown, and so is their contribution to the infection pressure from stable environment to the goat flock. De conclusions of the economic analysis are: • As the dairy goat vaccination programme continues, future expenses in maintaining the current protected status are relatively low. • For Q-fever infected goat farms in the Netherlands preventive vaccination is always the preferred control strategy compared to other analysed control strategies. This also holds for a partial analysis if only on-farm costs and benefits are accounted for. • Averted human health costs depend to a large extend on the number of infected human cases per infected farm or animal. However, much is yet unknown with respect to goat-human transmission rates. • Preventive vaccination on Q-fever free farms should also be considered if the probability of re-infection is estimated to be more frequent than once per 15 to 20 years. • Freedom of Q-fever disease in which the agent is absent in livestock and environment would enable a return to non-vaccinated herds. However, much is yet unknown with respect to the probability and mechanisms of re-infection.

This research is focused on economic differences of emergency vaccination in case of an outbreak of Classical Swine Fever (CSF) in a densely populated livestock area in the Netherlands. It compares the ef-fect of a vaccination to live strategy in which a C-strain vaccine is used with the effects of a E2 subunit vaccine. In dit onderzoek zijn de verschillen in economische effecten van noodvaccinatie bij een uitbraak van Klassieke Varkenspest (KVP) in een veedichtgebied in Nederland onderzocht. Hierbij is een levend vaccin gebaseerd op de C-stam vergeleken met het vaccin dat op het moment als voorkeurvaccin genoemd wordt in de bestrijdingsdraaiboeken (het E2 subunit vaccin).

Outbreaks of contagious animal diseases such as Classical Swine Fever have detrimental effects on the livestock sector in an affected country as well as on society at large. The development of antiviral agents to control these epidemics can reduce the consequences of such outbreaks. The economic impact of applying these antiviral agents is until now unknown. In this report these consequences are investigated.

Agroparks offer in theory a variety of economic advantages and environmental benefits. Since agropark projects are typically capital intensive and with high societal impact, appraisal from lenders and policy makers will play a key role in the realisation of the concept. In practice, however, project appraisal is hampered by the complexity of the concept and the multitude of risks. In this paper, a methodology based on stochastic fault-tree analysis (FTA) was developed to support project managers and policy makers in making agropark investment decisions. The methodology is illustrated with an example agropark project.