Paraguay Agricultural Sector Risk Assessment

This report is the result of a World
Bank mission that visited Paraguay in June 2013 at the
request of the Government of Paraguay. The mission’s
objective was to identify, quantify, and prioritize
agriculture risks that determine the volatility of
agriculture gross domestic product (GDP), based on a
methodology to assess sector risks developed by the World
Bank. The methodology stipulates a two-phase process. The
first phase (risk evaluation), which is in volume one of
this report, was reviewed by the government and evaluates
the current situation and perspective of agriculture sector
risks, starting from the standpoint of supply chains. From
here, and based on the identification of the most important
risks, given their frequency and severity, a list of
possible solutions was produced in addition to the existing
public and private programs and policies. This process is
completed with a second phase, where an action plan was
prepared (volume two) that can be executed in the medium
term to reduce sector risks and to contribute to the
sustainability of agriculture investments. The significant
efforts undertaken by the government to maintain support
programs in critical production and trade areas of the
sector are recognized, as well as the institutional
development to strengthen the response capacity to
agriculture risks. Chapter one gives introduction. Chapter
two presents information about the agriculture sector and
its recent performance is included, allowing to determine
the most important supply chains for this risk assessment
and to place the relative economic and social importance of
the various commodities and production methods in the
appropriate context. In chapter three, a comprehensive
assessment of production, market, and enabling environment
risks is undertaken for the main commercial and family
farming supply chains, in addition to livestock. Chapter
four shows the repercussions that risks have had in the
past, in particular aggregated losses incurred by supply
chain actors. Chapter five assesses the impacts of these
losses throughout the supply chains and explores the
relative vulnerability of the different actors. Chapter six
presents the results and ranking of risks, a list of
possible solutions jointly with different public initiatives
where some identified risks are addressed.