DAVARS.
District Agricultural Volatility and Adaptive Risk System. A monthly risk score for five districts in Northern Uganda, built to guide responsible capital deployment into youth agribusinesses.
One score for when agricultural risk is elevated.
DAVARS is a Neuravox Foundation pilot that turns scattered agricultural signals into a single, readable risk score for each district and month. It covers Gulu, Arua, Lira, Oyam, and Nebbi in Northern Uganda.
When the score crosses a district-specific threshold, the month is flagged high risk: a period when deploying growth capital into youth agribusinesses is statistically more likely to produce income losses. It is a transparent decision aid built on open data.
Capital moves without a risk signal.
Youth agribusinesses in Northern Uganda operate in volatile conditions. Droughts, price spikes, conflict, disasters, and rising input costs can turn a promising season into a loss, often with little warning.
Programmes and investors that deploy growth capital into these enterprises rarely have a consistent, district-level read on when conditions are dangerous. Without a shared risk signal, timing decisions rely on intuition, and avoidable losses follow.
Five signals, one composite score.
DAVARS combines five sub-indices, each capturing a different source of agricultural risk, into a weighted composite score from 0 to 100 per district and month.
Commodity volatility (CVI)
Price instability in local commodity markets, from rolling volatility to sudden spikes and market spreads.
Climate stress (CSI)
Rainfall deficit and heat stress measured against each district's own climatological normals.
Yield instability (YII)
Production volatility that signals when harvests and food availability are less predictable.
Shock intensity (SII)
Conflict events and recorded disasters that disrupt farming, markets, and movement.
Input cost pressure (ICPI)
Fertilizer and input cost stress that squeezes the economics of smallholder production.
Composite DARS score
The five sub-indices combine into one score per district-month, with a district threshold that flags high risk.
A documented pipeline, end to end.
Every month moves through the same steps so the score is reproducible and its provenance is clear before anyone acts on it.
- 01Monthly data is gathered from price, climate, yield, conflict, disaster, and input cost sources.
- 02Each stream is scored into a sub-index on a common scale per district-month.
- 03The five sub-indices are combined into a weighted composite DARS score from 0 to 100.
- 04Each district gets its own threshold, and months above it are flagged high risk.
- 05Results are validated against documented shocks and checked for weight sensitivity.
- 06A monthly bulletin and live dashboard make the current risk picture available for decisions.
A working prototype, already live.
The pilot models fifteen years of monthly data across five districts and publishes the results in a public dashboard, complete with district views, a component breakdown, validation, and a current month bulletin.
900
district-months modelled
5
districts covered
2010 to 2024
of monthly data
5
sub-indices combined
Grounded in evidence.
DAVARS is validated against documented shocks, tested for weight sensitivity, and fully documented, so its signal can be traced and checked.
Backtesting
The score is checked against documented shocks, including the 2016 to 2017 drought, the COVID disruption, and the 2022 to 2023 inflation shock, to confirm it rises when it should.
Weight sensitivity
The ranking of high risk months stays stable under alternative weightings, so the signal does not hinge on one weighting choice.
Transparency
Every component, weight, data source, and coverage gap is documented, so the score can be read and traced in full.
Clear scope
DAVARS is a volatility index that signals when agricultural conditions are dangerous, sitting alongside field-level enterprise assessment.
A dashboard you can read at a glance.
A Python pipeline computes the index, and a static dashboard hosted on Cloudflare Pages serves it with no running server. It refreshes automatically when the underlying data changes. Explore it directly.
Built on open data, implemented in the open.
DAVARS draws on open sources including WFP VAM price data, NASA POWER climate data, FAOSTAT crop statistics, ACLED conflict records, and IFDC input cost data. It is designed and implemented by Neuravox Foundation, with the full pipeline and methodology published as open source.
Put a risk signal behind your capital.
We work with funders, programmes, and researchers building responsible agricultural finance and public interest technology for the Global South.