Many small farmers in Africa suffer from soil infertility and dependence on chemical fertilizers. However, no method shows how bad the situation is and to what extent the farmers are prepared for such problems. The aim of this project is to develop criticality indicators for agricultural livelihood systems (ALS) based on the method of assessing metal criticality developed by Yale University. These indicators will measure how critical nutrients are for small farmers. The indicators consist of three dimensions:1) supply risks that smallholders face in connection with a nutrient, 2) resilience of smallholders to these supply risks, 3) environmental implications. First indicators for these criticality dimensions were derived from fieldwork in Burkina Faso.