Compare methods

	Agrifood Value Chain Analysis	Rapid Market Appraisal
Field	Food Agriculture Studies	Food Agriculture Studies
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	2001	2007
Originator	Raphael Kaplinsky & Mike Morris	John Holtzman and the rapid-appraisal marketing tradition; FAO agrifood-chain guidelines
Type	Field-based value-chain mapping and analysis pipeline	Rapid, iterative field-appraisal pipeline for market and value-chain diagnosis
Seminal source	Kaplinsky, R., & Morris, M. (2001). A Handbook for Value Chain Research. Prepared for the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex.	da Silva, C. A., & de Souza Filho, H. M. (2007). Guidelines for Rapid Appraisals of Agrifood Chain Performance in Developing Countries. Agricultural Management, Marketing and Finance Occasional Paper 20. Rome: FAO.
Aliases	Agricultural Value Chain Analysis, Food Value Chain Mapping, Commodity Chain Analysis (Agrifood), Value Chain Governance Analysis	RMA, Rapid Reconnaissance of Agricultural Markets, Rapid Agrifood Chain Appraisal, Subsector Rapid Appraisal
Related	3	4
Summary	Agrifood value chain analysis traces a food product through the full sequence of value-adding activities — from input supply and farming through processing, trade, and retail to the final consumer — and asks how value, costs, and power are distributed along that chain and where smallholders and processors can capture more. The method follows Kaplinsky and Morris's influential Handbook for Value Chain Research, which provides the practical apparatus for mapping a chain, quantifying flows and margins, and analysing governance and upgrading. Gereffi, Humphrey, and Sturgeon's theory of global value chain governance supplies the lens for understanding who coordinates the chain and how that coordination shapes the prospects for upgrading.	Rapid market appraisal (RMA) is a fast, low-cost, interdisciplinary field method for diagnosing how agricultural markets and value chains perform and where their binding constraints lie. Rooted in the rapid-reconnaissance marketing tradition associated with John Holtzman and codified for value chains in FAO's 2007 guidelines by Carlos da Silva and Hildo de Souza Filho, RMA trades the comprehensiveness of a formal survey for speed and flexibility: a small team scopes the commodity system, mines existing data to form hypotheses about constraints, and then conducts iterative semi-structured interviews with actors all along the chain — producers, traders, processors, transporters, retailers, and support services — refining its understanding as it goes and triangulating across sources. The product is a timely, actionable diagnosis of market structure, conduct, and performance that can guide investment, policy, or project design when a slow census-style study is neither affordable nor warranted.