This factsheet on ‘Smart agri-food supply chains’ is one of the outputs of the ENRD’s Thematic Working Group on ‘Smart and Competitive Rural Areas’ in 2016. ‘Smart’ has been taken to mean all those supply chains that strengthen the position of farmers and rural businesses by helping them to create as many jobs and retain as much value added in rural areas as possible. Short agri-food supply chains are vital, but not the only way of achieving this. The factsheet looks at the menu of tools available in the Rural Development Programmes (RDPs) for creating the conditions for smart and competitive supply chains. One of the main messages is that it is not so much the size or the number of the individual measures that counts, but the way in which these are combined in strategic and ‘smart’ ways to seize the opportunities in each rural area. Here the focus is on the agri-food chain but many of the lessons could also apply to other supply chains in rural areas.