Measuring the Fragility of Agribusiness Chains: A Case Study of the South African Lamb Chain

The ability to measure fragility is essential to operationalising the concept of chain fragility as a phenomenon. It is arguably easier to determine how fragile a complex system, like a chain, is rather than trying to predict the probability and impact that events could have on the system. The framework in this paper enables the detection of fragility and the quantification of fragility in response to progressively deteriorating chain factors. This approach is akin to stress-testing, albeit if for multiple factors and actors in a chain. The framework to measure detect chain fragility provides an alternative to the traditional chain risk assessment . The ability to measure chain fragility is particularly valuable in a context where risk and uncertainty are more pervasive, consequential and unpredictable. The paper shows that a number of very specific factors, like quality and safety performance, and cash flow position, have consistently high fragility scores for all actors in the chain. The paper also shows that while a golden thread of the same factors stretch across the chain a range of factors are uniquely localised to a specific role-player or activity, which highlights the techno-economic uniqueness of individual specific activities in a chain. Acknowledgement : The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the South African Red Meat Industry Trust, the University of Pretoria and the European Commission through the EU- Saturn