Systems approaches for value chain interventions targeting food safety and animal health in smallholder pig value chains

In the context of animal health and food safety, economic impact assessment tools are increasingly important to quantify the probable impacts of risks and to aid in decision making in times of increasingly tight budget constraints (Rich and Niemi 2017).However, the risks and impacts associated with both food safety and animal health can take place at multiple parts of the food value chain, and have different short-term and long-term effects.This suggests a need for better impact assessment tools that take the impacts at the whole chain-level into account.This paper applies a quantitative value chain approach to assess the impacts of interventions in selected pig value chains in Viet Nam, highlighting both short-term and long-term dynamic effects.For GAP to play a positive role in the value chain depends crucially on its cost of implementation.Identifying cost-effective solutions, such as a "VietGAHP lite" could positively influence adoption in the smallholder pig systems context in Viet Nam.These could include improved feeding practices in pigpens, simple ventilation systems, drinking water through taps, and regular cleaning and disinfection.The role of extension to create awareness is critical.The food safety scenarios highlight the potential role of the public sector in supporting value chain upgrading, especially if income gains associated with better public health do not provide adequate consumer incentives for buying safe pork.This public support could include assistance with finance and training programs to improve slaughter practices.Better capacity in the regulatory arena, in terms of inspection and compliance with standards, could further increase the returns to private sector investments in food safety.System approaches provides a template for decision making in value chains that could be applied in a variety of different agricultural and livestock contexts, including those in mountainous regions of Viet Nam.This approach can help to overcome policy resistance that biases decision making towards immediate solutions that overlook the unintended consequences of those decisions in the future.