5. Farm Risk Management Applied to Sustainability of the Food Supply Chain: A Case Study of Sustainability Risks in Dairy Farming

This chapter applies corporate process and risk analysis to maintaining the sustainability of the food supply chain. Primary food producers are facing increasing demands and risks. Simple tools for managing the food supply chain and self-assessment techniques are needed to follow the requirements of the new Food Act in Finland and the European Union. The identification and evaluation of different types of risks on farms, such as financial, environmental or social risks, can give useful information for the management of the dairy and other food supply chains. Risk analysis is used to evaluate sustainability issues in the dairy farm milking process. The views of farm managers on sustainability risks in the milking process are compared against the demands of the dairy supply chain using force field analysis. This analysis highlights those factors and tasks that are critical to the economic, environmental and social sustainability of the dairy supply process. Process risk analysis tools can be seen as an example of a sustainability risk accounting system applied in small firm management.