Approach for Risk Assessment in Agriculture. Example from African swine fever in Bulgaria

Abstract

There are different approaches for assessment of the economic consequences from infectious disease and other epizootic cases affecting agriculture. Agriculture is one of the economic sectors with high vulnerability to natural and epizootic risks. This is due to the biological nature of the production processes and the conditions under which it takes place. The goal of this study is to demonstrate a feasible approach to assess the risk outcomes represented by economic losses and costs incurred for fighting the epidemic based on the most recent African Swine Fever (ASF) outbreak in Bulgaria 2019–2020. ASF is a severe viral disease affecting
domestic and wild pigs. In Bulgaria for 2019, as a result of the infection, the number of inventory pig number at the end of the year was 25% lower compared to the previous year, while the whole herd of available and slaughtered pigs for the same year decreased by more than 6%. This leads to losses and economic damage that can be used to assess the risk factor. Regarding the goal, the risk assessment in this case, which is deemed as a feasible way for risk assessment in agriculture thoroughly will be performed in terms of the probability of occurrence of the risk factor and the intensity of the damage it causes. The quantitative methods for estimating costs are used to assess the risk in pig industry. They include autoregressive model, where livestock and production are projected itself by a lag function. The Error Correction Model is also applied to minimize the adjustments and stochastic error. The applied method is an appropriate tool for evaluating the consequences of risk factors and other hazards in agriculture.