Narrative Synthesis of the Economic Impact of Agricultural Supply Chain and Distribution Networks on Output

Abstract

Purpose: The objective of this study was to analyze the role of different supply chain players in agri-business and their effect on farmers’ output, to arrive at a feasible model of supply network intended for optimizing the surplus in these agri-business supply chains.
 
 Theoretical framework: A lot of literature is already published on agricultural supply chains and distribution networks but the intention of this study is to understand and explore the economic impact on output.
 
 Design/methodology/approach: According to (Denyer and Tranfield, 2009), a systematic review is a procedure that identifies prior research, chooses and assesses contributions, analyses and synthesizes data, and presents the findings in a way that enables reasonably clear conclusions to be drawn about what is known and what is unknown. Accordingly, a five-step approach proposed by them is adopted for this research review, which is illustrated below.
 
 Findings: The review of existing literature helped in forming the following categories of researched material, with different contributions to research:
 
 Technological factors affecting supply chain decisions of agricultural produce
 Optimization techniques applied to distribution networks
 Farmers’ integration in value-chain and inter-dependencies of players
 
 
 Research, Practical and Social Implications: The study paves way for the identification of an action plan based on the studies on economic impact and also provides future research direction.
 
 Originality/Value: No previous work on economic impact analysis of agricultural supply chains is done till now.