scholarly journals Agroecology, Supply Chains, and COVID‐19: Lessons on Food System Transitions from Ecuador

Author(s):  
Angus Lyall ◽  
Fernanda Vallejo ◽  
Rudi Colloredo‐Mansfeld ◽  
Elizabeth Havice
Keyword(s):  

The shorter food supply chains were the emerging trend in the agro-food system. The characteristic of local food supply chains are regional, freshness, quality products, and health benefits to the consumers. The present study explores the existing local dairy supply chains in the Haryana state. The local dairy supply chains were analysed and found that the shorter milk supply chains were more profitable with reduced intermediaries and higher producer shares in consumer rupees for all dairy products. The supply chains which involved intermediaries had lesser cost per unit of operation in dairy processing but fetched lower prices due to the quality issues and more distance travelled by dairy products. The economic viability and financial position of the processing units exhibited favourable results for both supply chains but it was higher for Supply Chain-I.


2017 ◽  
Vol 114 (38) ◽  
pp. E7891-E7899 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy M. Smith ◽  
Andrew L. Goodkind ◽  
Taegon Kim ◽  
Rylie E. O. Pelton ◽  
Kyo Suh ◽  
...  

Corn production, and its associated inputs, is a relatively large source of greenhouse gas emissions and uses significant amounts of water and land, thus contributing to climate change, fossil fuel depletion, local air pollutants, and local water scarcity. As large consumers of this corn, corporations in the ethanol and animal protein industries are increasingly assessing and reporting sustainability impacts across their supply chains to identify, prioritize, and communicate sustainability risks and opportunities material to their operations. In doing so, many have discovered that the direct impacts of their owned operations are dwarfed by those upstream in the supply chain, requiring transparency and knowledge about environmental impacts along the supply chains. Life cycle assessments (LCAs) have been used to identify hotspots of environmental impacts at national levels, yet these provide little subnational information necessary for guiding firms’ specific supply networks. In this paper, our Food System Supply-Chain Sustainability (FoodS3) model connects spatial, firm-specific demand of corn purchasers with upstream corn production in the United States through a cost minimization transport model. This provides a means to link county-level corn production in the United States to firm-specific demand locations associated with downstream processing facilities. Our model substantially improves current LCA assessment efforts that are confined to broad national or state level impacts. In drilling down to subnational levels of environmental impacts that occur over heterogeneous areas and aggregating these landscape impacts by specific supply networks, targeted opportunities for improvements to the sustainability performance of supply chains are identified.


2021 ◽  
pp. 369-406
Author(s):  
Rounaq Nayak ◽  

Global food production needs to increase by approximately 70% by 2050 to ensure food security and feed the global population which is expected to reach 9.6 billion by 2050. To achieve these objectives in a sustainable manner, there is a need for modernisation and intensification of agricultural practices. There is also an increasing demand for proving sustainability within supply chains with research showing a direct correlation between transparency and consumer trust in agri-food products. This chapter starts out by detailing the impact and need for a globalised food system. It then progresses to discuss existing applications of Internet of Things (IoT) systems and the potential of future IoT systems in helping achieve these targets. The chapter also briefly touches upon the potential for combining Blockchain Technology and IoT systems in helping improve transparency and accountability within agri-food supply chains.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (17) ◽  
pp. 4800 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gunnar Vittersø ◽  
Hanne Torjusen ◽  
Kirsi Laitala ◽  
Barbara Tocco ◽  
Beatrice Biasini ◽  
...  

The present food system faces major challenges in terms of sustainable development along social, economic and environmental dimensions. These challenges are often associated with industrialised production processes and longer and less transparent distribution chains. Thus, closer distribution systems through Short Food Supply Chains (SFSCs) may be considered as a sustainable alternative. This study explores the role of different types of SFSCs and their contribution to sustainability through participants’ (consumers, retailers and producers) views and perceptions. As part of the European H2020 project “Strength2Food” we conducted a cross-case analysis and examined 12 European SFSC cases from six countries: France, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Poland and the UK. We applied a mixed method approach including primary data collection, via in-depth interviews and customer surveys, as well as desk research. The findings suggest that, irrespective of the type of SFSC, a strong agreement among the participants were found on the contribution of SFSCs to social sustainability. However, participants’ views considerably differ regarding the economic and environmental dimensions of sustainability. These differences relate to the way the SFSCs were organised and to some degrees to regional differences attributed to the significance of SFSC in different parts of Europe. The article concludes that the spatial heterogeneity of SFSCs, including supply chain actor differences, different types and organisational forms of SFSCs as well as regional and territorial characteristics, must be taken into account and further emphasised in future policies aimed at strengthening European food chain sustainability.


2018 ◽  
Vol 78 (4) ◽  
pp. 470-488 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Clare Ahearn ◽  
Kathleen Liang ◽  
Stephan Goetz

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to identify the factors associated with farm financial success for those farms known to produce for local supply chains. The analysis considers alternative measures of farm financial performance and considers the role of the local foods supply chain in the choice to market locally.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses a two-stage Heckman approach which addresses the possibility of sample selection bias. In the first stage, the choice model to engage in direct marketing is estimated. In the second stage, the authors estimate a model of the financial performance of those in the sample that direct marketed which includes an IMR term calculated from the parameters of the first stage equation. The analysis uses national farm-level data from the Agricultural and Resource Management Survey of the US Department of Agriculture and combines data from 2009 to 2012 to overcome the constraint of small samples.FindingsIndicators of the development of a local foods supply were positively related to the choice to engage in direct marketing. Factors affecting farm financial performance varied significantly between a short-term and a long-term measure. The results emphasize the importance of considering multiple outcome measures, developing local supply chains and provide implications about beginning farms.Originality/valueIf a local foods system is going to thrive, the farms that market the agricultural products in the local food system must attain a certain level of profitability. The value of the analysis is an improved understanding of the financial performance of farms producing for a small, but growing segment of the food supply chain.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 751 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wayne Martindale ◽  
Mark Swainson ◽  
Sonal Choudhary

Pressure points in global food supply where resilience in supply chains can be limited or controlled are the equivalent of Critical Control Points in food safety systems. The approach of using critical control in supply chains can provide insights for nutritional improvement, sustainable food trade and food waste reduction. The pressure points determine the provision of a secure and sustainable food system where the outcomes of reducing their criticality are identified in the UN Sustainable Development Goals and other international programmes. These seek to reduce climate change impact and improve public health provision. While policy makers are rightly focussed on these targets, the data analysis methods required to rank and associate resource flow pressure points with commercial food supply chains and nutritional goals remain untested. Here, we show how methodologies can identify where opportunities to tackle future criticality exist, and where they are currently being overlooked for food categories that have the greatest consumer and dietary protein demand. The analysis provides insights that identify where latent restrictions in resilience can occur, so that the future risk of food insecurity is reduced.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 960-971
Author(s):  
N.N. Shurakova ◽  

The article examines such a new global challenge as the coronavirus pandemic. The features of this large-scale, unprecedented shock and the economic crisis agent are analyzed. It was noted that among the affected sectors of the world economy, there is the global agri-food system: a demand shock is superimposed on the supply shock, world trade is paralyzed, logistics flows are disrupted, supply chains are disrupted, and agricultural production is likely to decline. The outbreak of COVID-19 has led to a fall in the Russian economy. It is concluded that currently nothing threatens food security from the point of view of physical accessibility. However, the economic availability of food may not be ensured due to income loss and rising prices. In addition, COVID-19 may negatively affect the country’s export-oriented food course, foreign economic relations in the agro-industrial sector and the current import substitution policy. Despite the fact that the country is currently provided with food, there are still problems connected with the dependence on the import of technologies and components, machinery and equipment, breeding products and seeds. It has been substantiated that in order to prevent food crisis in the foreseeable future, the restructuring and stabilization of food systems at the national and global levels is required, which could ensure their sustainability and smooth operation in terms of creating backup channels and reserves to prevent disruptions and blockages in supply chains that are observed in period of COVID-19.


2021 ◽  
Vol 190 ◽  
pp. 103136
Author(s):  
Isabeau Coopmans ◽  
Jo Bijttebier ◽  
Fleur Marchand ◽  
Erik Mathijs ◽  
Lies Messely ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
pp. 0308518X2110152
Author(s):  
Alex Hughes ◽  
Emma Roe ◽  
Suzanne Hocknell

This paper presents a critique of supply chain responses to a particular global wicked problem – antimicrobial resistance (AMR). It evaluates the understanding of AMR (and drug-resistant infections) as a food system challenge and critically explores how responsibility for addressing it is framed and implemented. We place the spotlight on the AMR strategies applied in UK retailers’ domestic poultry and pork supply chains. This provides a timely analysis of corporate engagement with AMR in light of the 2016 O’Neill report on Tackling Drug Resistant Infections Globally, which positioned supermarket chains, processors, and regulators as holding key responsibilities. Research included interviews with retailers, industry bodies, policy makers, farmers, processors, consultants and campaigners. We evaluate how strategy for tackling AMR in the food system is focused on antimicrobial stewardship, particularly targets for reducing antibiotic use in domestic food production. The global value chain notion of multipolar governance, where influence derives from multiple nodes both inside and outside the supply chain, is blended with more-than-human assemblage perspectives to capture the implementation of targets. This conceptual fusion grasps how supply chain responsibility and influence works through both a distributed group of stakeholders and the ecological complexity of the AMR challenge. The paper demonstrates in turn: how the targets for reducing antibiotic use in domestic meat production represent a particular and narrowly defined strategic focus; how those targets have been met through distributed agency in the UK supply chain; and the geographical and biological limitations of the targets in tackling AMR as a wicked problem.


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