Analysis of the enablers to deal with the ripple effect in food grain supply chains under disruption: Implications for food security and sustainability

Abstract

Because of the massive globalization process, market volatility, and today's ever-changing business environment, managing grain supply chains (GSCs) is becoming increasingly challenging. In addition, the ongoing Russia–Ukraine conflict is causing significant disruptions in global supply chains, adding to the challenges imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic in the last couple of years. The ongoing socio-economic disruptions have created a ripple effect in the global supply chains worldwide, especially in emerging economies, which also happen to be the major global exporters of food grains. In this regard, the key enablers of the GSC must be identified to address the impact of the ripple effect and ensure sustainability and food security. This paper addresses these challenges and amalgamates the knowledge on ripple effects, sustainability, and food security. The study aims to identify, prioritize, and delineate the systemic interrelationships among enablers to address the ripple effect of GSC in emerging economies like Bangladesh. A multi-method approach integrating Pareto analysis, total interpretive structural modeling (TISM), and matrice d'impacts croisés multiplication appliquée à un classement (MICMAC) was employed for this purpose. The findings of this study indicate that geological sourcing diversification, governing cash flow to avoid the liquidity crisis, and supplier clustering according to disruptive risks are the most significant enablers. The insights from this study can potentially assist industry leaders and GSC practitioners in making strategic decisions to achieve sustainability in the grain management sector and thus improve future food security in emerging economies.