Banana Supply Chain Research Articles

Life cycle assessment of bananas, melons, and watermelons from Costa Rica

Banana and watermelon are the two most important fruit crops in the world, and Costa Rica is one of the leading producers worldwide. Even though the importance of banana, melon, and watermelon crops, few life cycle assessments have been done and published. This study aims to provide information on the environmental performance of the banana, melon, and watermelon sectors in Costa Rica to determine the most significant parameters in the life cycle of these fruits. The supply chain of the fruit crops was analyzed as follows: farm production, post-harvest treatment and packaging, distribution and retail, household consumption, and end of life. It means that the study was developed with a cradle-to-grave approach. The functional unit was 1 kg of fresh fruit delivered in a country of the European Union. Mainly, primary data were used from farms with a conventional farming system. The fruit production process was modeled in SimaPro 9.0. ReCiPe midpoint (H) was used for the impact assessment, where 11 impact categories were evaluated, including the categories required in the product category rules for fruits and nuts. In all three fruit crops studied, the most impact stages are farm production, distribution and retail (international transport), and the end-of-life stage. In this study, waste management is relatively high due to the high amount of the non-edible part of the fruit (38.6 % for bananas and 42 % for melon and watermelon). It has a significant influence on the toxicity impact categories. The carbon footprint for the banana supply chain was estimated at 0.805 kg CO2-eq/kg of bananas produced in Costa Rica and consumed in Europe, and for melon and watermelon was 0.822 kg of CO2-eq/kg. Since there are no life cycle assessments of banana fruit with a cradle-to-grave approach, and only studies focused on carbon footprint or with a cradle-to-gate approach are available, more studies and collection of information in situ are necessary.

Simulation Model for a Sustainable Food Supply Chain in a Developing Country: A Case Study of the Banana Supply Chain in Malawi

Background: Sustainability in food supply chains is desired for production, logistics, and waste management. However, food supply chains (SCs) have complex systems that differ from other SCs. Managing such complexities is challenging for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) due to their heightened constraints, such as limited resources and inadequate awareness. Despite the challenges, there is fragmented research, understanding, and approaches to assist SMEs. SC designs need to be adapted so that SMEs can navigate the challenges and avert high wastage. The main objective of this research was to identify the practices influencing sustainable SC designs in a developing country and create a simulation model to illustrate the potential benefits and challenges of promoting sustainability in the banana SC in Malawi. Methods: Mixed-methods research was utilised, employing a literature review, participant interviews, observations, and survey data collected from 353 participants from three districts in Malawi to gain insight into the banana SC problem, establish objectives, and develop a simulation model complemented by design science research. Results: The research identified awareness, collaboration, efficiency, governance, knowledge sharing, and resilience as sustainability practices in the case study banana SC, thus forming a sustainability model. Simulation results showed improvements in key performance indicators like shelf-life, lead-time, quality, throughput, and waste through SC operation reorganisation. Conclusions: Sustainable models must be tailored to the specific challenges inherent in developing food supply chains in developing nations. The development of the models has significant managerial implications, notably enhancing strategic planning, operational efficiency, risk management, alignment of sustainability goals, performance monitoring, stakeholder engagement, and resource optimisation.

Banana Supply Chain in Navi Mumbai, India

This study investigates the banana supply chain in Navi Mumbai, aiming to identify existing supply channels, analyze their efficiency, problems faced by producers and anayse the market potential of banana in the study area. Primary data were collected from respondents to accomplish these objectives. Secondary data were obtained from private and government publications, and review papers. Utilizing a descriptive research design and employing a probability sampling method, the study surveyed 50 farmers, 5 village traders, 5 pre-harvest contractors, 10 wholesalers cum commission agents, and 10 retailers using a semi-structured schedule. Three marketing channels were identified. Among them channel-III (Farmer - Wholesaler cum commission agent - Retailer - Consumer) was the most efficient option, offering the highest producer's share in the consumer's rupee (40.05%) and the highest marketing efficiency (0.67), with a price spread of Rs. 1711.55 per quintal. In the study area, banana producers face challenges such as high input costs, delayed availability of planting materials, and losses due to diseases and pests. Marketing hurdles include lower prices, distant selling unit locations, delayed payments, and inadequate transportation and storage facilities. Village traders, preharvest contractors, wholesalers cum commission agents, and retailers also encounter various obstacles such as price fluctuation, handling and transportation losses, low-quality produce, and labour shortages. As the total market demand for banana in Navi Mumbai was estimated to be ₹62.26 crore, addressing these challenges is vital for enhancing the efficiency and profitability of banana marketing in the study area, necessitating coordinated efforts from policymakers, agricultural stakeholders, and market participants. Establishing FPOs and FPCs can ease access to affordable planting materials and address marketing challenges, benefiting all banana market stakeholders.

Optimizing decisions for post‐harvest ripening agricultural produce supply chain management: a dynamic quality‐based model

AbstractFresh agricultural produce, which is characterized by post‐harvest ripening and is required for long‐term transportation in cross‐regional trade, is commonly harvested at the unripe stage and undergoes a routine process of natural ripening followed by senescence. A model based on the dynamic quality of post‐harvest ripening agricultural produce (PRAP) was proposed to optimize decisions to improve supply chain profits. To verify its effectiveness and robustness, the model is applied to a real banana supply chain. The theoretical derivations and simulation results show that, first, the optimal retail price and presentation timing based on the model can maximize the supply chain profit. Second, the proper choice of the combination of picking maturity and preservation temperature based on the time from picking to the retailer can effectively improve the on‐shelf quality and supply chain profit. Third, supply chain management strategies for PRAP and fully ripened agricultural produce should be developed based on the different quality change characteristics of these two produce types.

Banana Supply Chain: A Case Study of Vadodara City of Gujarat

The supply chain begins with acquiring fundamental raw materials and ends with delivering the finished product to the consumer. The growing interest in Agricultural Supply Chain Management (ASCM) can be attributed to two main factors: agricultural industrialization and the uncertainty brought on by differences in product quality and safety. The study objective was to identify different marketing channels of banana in Vadodara city, to estimate the price spread of banana and to identify problems faced by producers and intermediaries. Primary data were collected from 40 farmers, 15 wholesalers and 25 retailers to accomplish these objectives. Secondary data were collected from different private and government publications, review papers, literature, and journals. For the study descriptive type of research design was used. In the research sampling method was non-probability sampling method and sampling technique was convenience sampling technique were used. Channel-IV was the most effective way to reach consumers because it has the shortest route. Channel-I was less effective than the others because its marketing cost was the highest. The study reveals that the existing supply chain has a serious problem of lower prices faced by farmers. A significant problem for wholesalers is the lack of a ripening chamber. The major problem for retailers is that they suffer from higher post-harvest losses due to the lack of storage facilities, forcing them to sell products quickly to maximize profits and minimize losses. After doing certain changes like developing a ripening facility in marketing channel IV company may adopt this channel because its channel has the highest marketing efficiency and more share of producer in consumer rupee. To overcome these problems, there is a need to develop infrastructures, cold storage facilities, set up ripening chambers, processing facilities and use refrigerated vehicles for long-distance transportation, etc.

Mitigating Environmental Impact of Perishable Food Supply Chain by a Novel Configuration: Simulating Banana Supply Chain in Sri Lanka

As the world is moving into a sustainable era, achieving zero hunger has become one of the top three Sustainable Development Goals, applying a considerable amount of pressure on the agri-food systems to make decisions contemplating the sustainability dimensions. Accordingly, making effective supply chain decisions holistically while achieving sustainability goals has become a major challenge faced by the present agri-food systems. Thus, to address the challenge, a novel supply chain configuration addressing multiple supply chain decisions to reduce global warming potential (GWP) and post-harvest losses have been presented by taking the banana supply chain in Sri Lanka as a case study. In the proposed approach, farmers have been clustered based on their geo positions using K-Means clustering followed by route planning within clusters using a heuristics approach. Retailer points are catered by assigning to wholesalers optimally modeling as an assignment model and then route planning executed using a heuristic approach. The solution generated from the above approaches has been implemented on a simulation platform to calculate the overall supply chain performance including the transportation component, in terms of the net GWP, post-harvest losses, and lead time including routing operations. Simulated supply chain performance has been compared with the existing system and verified the performance of the proposed supply chain configuration. The suggested configuration has reduced the net GWP by 15.3%, post-harvest loss by 2.1%, lead time by 28.2%, and travel distance by 20.47%. The proposed configuration can be further improved by adding dynamic characteristics to the model.

Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Vertical Price Transmission in the U.S. Fresh Banana Market

The U.S. imports about two billion dollars of fresh bananas, accounting for over 99 percent of domestic banana consumption annually. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the fresh banana supply chain and caused unexpected price movements along the marketing channel. This research investigated the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on price adjustments in the U.S. fresh banana market. A Vector Error Correction (VEC) model was employed to evaluate the speeds of price adjustments along the U.S. banana marketing channel at the import and retail levels, and historical decomposition graphs were used to investigate the magnitude of price adjustments caused by the COVID-19 shock. The results show that the deviation from the long-run equilibrium caused by the shock was corrected faster for the import prices than retail prices. Hence, the speeds of price adjustments were asymmetric in the period of the COVID-19 shock. Additionally, the magnitudes of price changes caused by the pandemic shock were different, leading to increased price margins. These results point to the inefficiency of the banana marketing channel with welfare, policy, and agribusiness implications.

Recent Postharvest Technologies in the Banana Supply Chain

Postharvest technology plays a vital role in preserving fruits. In particular, banana is a climacteric fruit with a short shelf-life; thus, good postharvest practice through the supply chain is essential to maintaining its quality. Prior to applying proper postharvest technology, it is important to understand the physiological changes in banana during the ripening process. This review describes the physiological characteristics of banana after harvesting as well as the technologies being studied and adopted practically to achieve postharvest goals. The discussion herein highlights the critical quality control points in the banana supply chain, e.g., storage, artificial ripening, and transportation. By assembling the current knowledge, this review could contribute on quality improvement through applying the proper postharvest technologies.

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FOR BANANA: APPLICATION AREAS, LEARNING ALGORITHMS, AND FUTURE CHALLENGES

Bananas are the world’s most traded fruits. Several analytical models using artificial intelligence (AI) have been developed to resolve challenges facing the banana supply chain. The number of publications in this field has steadily increased each year. However, a literature review regarding the trends of recent AI developments is not available. Thus, this study reviews the current scenario of scientific research involving AI in the stages of the banana supply chain (pre-harvest, harvest, post-harvest, processing and retail). This review covers literature published between 2015 and 2020 from online databases. Fifty-two relevant studies were retrieved from 23 countries. Consequently, we propose an AI-performance framework based on real applications implemented for bananas: the application domain, learning algorithms, performance metrics, and reported impacts. This paper discovers 11 AI-application areas for bananas, such as ripeness, leaf diseases, quality grading, crop type, crop yield, and soil control. Moreover, this review summarizes the main functionality of learning algorithms found in the literature (ANN, CNN, SVM, and K-NN). Finally, the future challenges are discussed. This comprehensive review will help researchers understand AI applications in the banana sector and analyze the knowledge gap for future studies.

STRATEGI PENINGKATAN KUALITAS PRODUK DALAM RANTAI PASOK KOMODITI PISANG DI PROVINSI BENGKULU

A well-being supply chain system will affect on the sustainability of the production and consumer’s satisfaction. Consumer’s need will be fulfilled if the served quality is in the accordance with consumer’s expectations. This study aimed to identify banana supply chains, determine product quality attributes, and strategies for improving the quality of banana products. The methods used were Van der Vorst supply chain management framework, Quality Function Deployment (QFD), and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). The research results exposed that banana supply chain consisted farmers, traders, industries, retailers, and consumers. The dominant quality factors on thise supply chain were the harvest planning (0.24) and harvesting technique (0.19) for fresh bananas; the frying (0.28) and the packaging (0.20) for sale banana; the frying (0.28) and the packaging (0.17) for banana chips. Meanwhile, the quality attributes for fresh bananas were fruit maturity and damage level, for sale bananas were taste and texture, and for banana chips were taste and level of cracked chips. The proposed strategies to improve product quality in the banana comodity supply chain were an increase ability or skill in the production process for each actor (0.25), using standards in the product production process (0.22), make a explicit contractual agreements between actors regarding product quality (0.21), establish a structur farmer group institutions (0.13), optimizing local wisdom (0.10) and the government’s role in assisting farmer and industrial development (0.08). Keywords: banana products,quality improvement, supply chain

Trading off cost, emission, and quality in cold chain design: A simulation approach

A cold chain is a complex system. It must deal with the requirements of cost efficiency, timeliness, product quality, and environmental impacts as well as the specific technical challenges in handling perishable cargo. Taking an action to accomplish one of these goals might fail in achieving another goal. Hence, one of the most important challenges in cold chain management is to identify solutions balancing cost, quality, and environmental concerns. Additionally, multiple stakeholders are involved in cold chains who have different perceptions of the product quality, economic, and sustainability aspects. There can be a conflict of interests between stakeholders in the chain. Considering the complexity of cold chains, tailored solutions must be designed to trade off different objectives in cold chain design. This paper aims at presenting an agent-oriented simulation framework to support decision-making in the design and operation of cold chains to trade off cost, emission, and quality. To illustrate the simulation framework, a case study of a global banana supply chain is presented and discussed. In the numerical study, the slow streaming strategy and the in-transit quality management system are analysed. The results show the capability of the presented model to analyse different scenarios and evaluate the influence on total logistics cost, emission, and the quality of perishable products. The numerical study results show a trade-off between reducing energy consumption and preserving product quality when changing the vessel speed. Furthermore, integrating quality management with logistics activities could optimize the operational costs and emission along the chain; however, the quality might be lower than a post-transport quality management system.

The Analysis of Supply Chain of Mulu Bebe Banana in East Sahu Sub-District

The purpose of this study is to find out the Mulu bebe banana supply chain mechanism in East Sahu Sub-District, to find out the marketing distribution of Mulu bebe banana in East Sahu Sub- District and to find out the marketing margins in each supply chain of Mulu bebe banana. The study was conducted in East Sahu Sub-district through observation, questionnaires, direct interviews with the agribusiness perpetrators of the Mulu bebe banana in 2018. The sample selection was carried out by stratified sampling and total sample is 73 respondents. The results showed that there were three flow mechanisms, first is the information flow, product flow and financial flow. There were two marketing distribution of Mulu bebe banana in East Sahu sub-district used by farmers. First, farmers to consumers and second is farmers to village collection traders to retailers then to consumers. While the total marketing margins obtained by collectors and retailers in marketing distributin II in grade A and grade B mulu bebe bananas are Rp. 30,000, while the marketing margin obtained by collectors and retailers in grade C of Mulu bebe banana is Rp. 25,000

Environmental Impact Assessment of Thai Banana Supply Chain

Environmental Impact Assessment of Thai Banana Supply Chain

PRODUCTION AND MARKETING OF BANANA:

Banana is one of the prominent cultivation fruits in Sri Lanka and at present, approximately 54 percent of the total fruit cultivation lands are used to cultivate Banana. There is a wide range in cultivating practices and sales channels which all are linked together into the supply chain in the country. The domestic Banana supply chain is a good example of the fruit and vegetable supply chain of the country. This study attempts to determine the relative profitability of banana using data collected from ‘Walawa region’ during the period of July to September 2017. Total cost, profit and benefit cost ratio for indifferent marketing channels such as banana producers, wholesalers and retailers ware investigated. The results show that, the profit margin of the retailer is greater than that of the farmers and wholesalers. It is also found that average benefit cost ratio of the producer has the highest, however the retailer has the largest impact on determining the price of banana in the intermediate chain. The results of this study can be used to make appropriate policies for increasing the competition in different value chain of the Banana production and marketing in Sri Lanka.

Sustainability Issues in the Cameroon Banana Supply Chain

Bananas are a major staple as well as an important cash crop in developing countries and the most eaten fruit in Europe and Northern America. For decades, the banana economy has been a key example of trade injustice. The concentration of power in the hands of a few multinational companies has negatively affected the lives of thousands of banana workers and small farmers. While this activity has generated a lot of profits for the multinational corporations that operate the plantations, the labourers and the communities in which these plantations are found have suffered all sorts of marginalization in the hands of the companies. It is against this backdrop that this paper sets out to make an appraisal of some sustainability issues that have gone a long way to affect the lives of both the workers and the communities in the Njombe-Penja area which is one the key banana producing area in Cameroon.

Carbon footprint along the Ecuadorian banana supply chain: methodological improvements and calculation tool

Bananas are among the five most important food crops in the world, after wheat, rice, maize, and potatoes and Ecuador is a major banana producer and the world's leading banana exporter. A detailed carbon footprint assessment from cradle-to-grave of the Ecuadorian banana value chain was carried out. Special effort was made to adjust the emission factors to the local conditions, especially in those activities that were expected to contribute most to the whole footprint. The calculated carbon footprint of Ecuadorian bananas, inclusive of the consumption point in Spain, was 1.28 tonne CO2e per tonne of banana. The results were also reported individually for the main contributors within the value chain. The values reported in this study are lower or in line with those available in the literature and the differences can be attributed to the use of different parameters – adjusted in the present study to the specific conditions of Ecuador. Farm stage was identified as the main contributor (22.1%) and significant differences were found between the environmental performance of conventional and organic farms, mainly due to the use of synthetic fertilizers in the former and the related nitrous oxide emissions. A carbon footprint Excel-based calculation tool was also developed, to allow Ecuadorian stakeholders to evaluate different operating conditions. The methodological adjustments developed in this study can be applied to future cases of similar characteristics. For example, the new emission factors obtained can be used to determine nitrous oxide emissions from managed soils in tropical countries; also of broader applicability are the emission factors that consider different load percentages and refrigerated conditions in transport stages. Moreover, the carbon footprint calculation tool will allow banana stakeholders to evaluate their environmental performance under varying conditions and to identify scope for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions.

Production Analysis of Banana Supply Chain Management in Thailand

The objective of this research is to identify the main concerning factors of Thai banana farmers’ production.This study was used primary data from interviews with banana farmers. Secondary data were used from literaturereview for confirmation.This study found that the problems begin at the seedling stage, when low survival rates affect the numbers ofbananas per area, the growth rate of seedlings, the appropriate seedling age, plant material durability and higherproduction costs.The main problems at the growth stage that must be managed by farmers include soil fertility, suitable fertilizermethods and application rates, weevil infestations, and drought conditions.Banana yields and quality have an impact on farmers’ incomes since higher yields provide higher incomes. Goodquality crops offer farmers absolute benefits, since farmers can then sell bananas at a high price and their bananaswon’t be rejected.Production is an important part of banana supply chain management. Methods or technologies must be identified andapplied to create value for farmers. This also benefits consumers since they want high quality bananas andchemical-free bananas. Thailand’s banana industry must consider various aspects of production as importers orimporting countries are currently asking for high quality bananas that are also free of any chemical residue.

Is Bigger Better? The Small Farm Imaginary and Fair Trade Banana Production in the Dominican Republic

Fair Trade is a certification system designed to create social change in production and consumption patterns, primarily in agricultural products, by shaping what happens on the production end of the supply chain through a certification and regulatory system. Previous research on Fair Trade investigated the workings and benefits of Fair Trade production models, with little attention paid to how the Fair Trade model might fail to meet its objectives. Research on Fair Trade would suggest that if inequality and exploitation exist in the Fair Trade supply chain, it would be experienced by the most marginalized actors, such as the temporary workers hired by smallhold farmers, who are frequently invisible in the Fair Trade literature and documents on banana production in the Caribbean. Through a global ethnography of the organic and Fair Trade banana supply chain in the Dominican Republic, this research reveals how Fair Trade as a “spatial fix” for capital and a “small farm imaginary” work to marginalize a particular class of workers. It also reveals the unseen sociality of Fair Trade standards in the systemic and structural assumptions in the small farm production model that Fair Trade promotes. The study finds that smallhold workers are essential to sustaining the market for Fair Trade bananas in a form of functional dualism between smallholders and plantations. In a counterintuitive outcome of the workings of Fair Trade, workers might be better off in the medium-scale plantation model unique to the Dominican Republic.

Remote quality monitoring in the banana chain.

Quality problems occurring during or after sea transportation of bananas in refrigerated containers are mainly caused by insufficient cooling and non-optimal atmospheric conditions, but also by the heat generated by respiration activity. Tools to measure and evaluate these effects can largely help to reduce losses along the banana supply chain. The presented green life model provides a tool to predict the effect of deviating temperature, relative humidity, and CO2 and O2 gas concentrations on the storage stability of bananas. A second thermal model allows evaluation of the cooling efficiency, the effect of changes in packaging and stowage and the amount of respiration heat from the measured temperature curves. Spontaneous ripening causes higher respiration heat and CO2 production rate. The resulting risk for creation of hot spots increases in positions in which the respiration heat exceeds the available cooling capacity. In case studies on the transport of bananas from Costa Rica to Europe, we validated the models and showed how they can be applied to generate automated warning messages for containers with reduced banana green life or with temperature problems and also for remote monitoring of the ripening process inside the container.

Carbon footprint of a Cavendish banana supply chain

Purpose Bananas are one of the highest selling fruits worldwide, and for several countries, bananas are an important export commodity. However, very little is known about banana’s contribution to global warming. The aims of this work were to study the greenhouse gas emissions of bananas from cradle to retail and cradle to grave and to assess the potential of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions along the value chain. Methods Carbon footprint methodology based on ISO-DIS 14067 was used to assess GHG emissions from 1 kg of bananas produced at two plantations in Costa Rica including transport by cargo ship to Norway. Several methodological issues are not clearly addressed in ISO 14067 or the LCA standards 14040 and ISO 14044 underpinning 14067. Examples are allocation, allocation in recycling, representativity and system borders. Methodological choices in this study have been made based on other standards, such as the GHG Protocol Products Standard. Results and discussion The results indicate that bananas had a carbon footprint (CF) on the same level as other tropical fruits and that the contribution from the primary production stage was low. However, the methodology used in this study and the other comparative studies was not necessarily identical; hence, no definitive conclusions can be drawn. Overseas transport and primary production were the main contributors to the total GHG emissions. Including the consumer stage resulted in a 34 % rise in CF, mainly due to high wastage. The main potential reductions of GHG emissions were identified at the primary production, within the overseas transport stage and at the consumer. Conclusions The carbon footprint of bananas from cradle to retail was 1.37 kg CO2 per kilogram banana. GHG emissions from transport and primary production could be significantly reduced, which could theoretically give a reduction of as much as 44 % of the total cradle-to-retail CF. The methodology was important for the end result. The choice of system boundaries gives very different results depending on which life cycle stages and which unit processes are included. Allocation issues were also important, both in recycling and in other processes such as transport and storage. The main uncertainties of the CF result are connected to N2O emissions from agriculture, methane emissions from landfills, use of secondary data and variability in the primary production data. Thus, there is a need for an internationally agreedcalculationmethodforbananasandotherfoodproducts if CFs are to be used for comparative purposes.