Fresh Agricultural Products Research Articles

Effects of electron‐beam irradiation on postharvest strawberry quality

To safeguard the ecosystem and facilitate the international trade of fresh agricultural products, phytosanitary treatments, particularly newly emerged electron-beam (e-beam) irradiation, are recommended because they are eco-friendly and do not adversely affect postharvest preservation. However, the effects of this technique on “Maehyang” strawberries are unknown. Therefore, herein, the effects of e-beam irradiation (≤1 kGy) on postharvest preservation of strawberry during storage were evaluated. E-beam irradiation reduced the microbial population, decay extent, and weight loss of strawberries in a dose-dependent manner without affecting total soluble solids content, pH, and titratable acidity. During storage, total/individual phenolic contents, total anthocyanin content, and antioxidant activities of irradiated fruits increased more slowly than those of non-irradiated fruits and maximized at the end of the storage. E-beam irradiation prevented sensory degradation and color and firmness changes. Therefore, the e-beam-irradiation-based phytosanitary treatment can efficiently mitigate the deterioration of consumer acceptance and improve postharvest preservation of strawberries. Practical applications E-beam irradiation of strawberries with a 1-kGy dose resulted in microbial decontamination, reduction in decay extent and weight loss, inhibition of color, firmness and chemical quality changes, and sensory quality retention without adversely affecting fruit quality parameters such as total soluble solid content, pH, and titratable acidity during storage. Thus, low-dose e-beam irradiation can be used for the phytosanitary treatment of strawberry to improve postharvest preservation and sensory quality. The easy transportation of these treated strawberries to otherwise unreachable distant market, as evident from our results, and the product quality improvements such as better sensory and color characteristics open opportunities for new markets and increase consumer acceptance, even at higher prices.

Food First: COVID-19 Outbreak and Cities Lockdown a Booster for a Wider Vision on Urban Agriculture

The COVID-19 emergency has revealed the extreme fragility of large cities to unexpected complex global risks and crises. City lockdown has led to increasing awareness of the vital importance of food availability for citizens. The combined effect of border closure and movement restrictions increased food losses and export costs, especially for vegetables and perishable goods exposing non-self-sufficient countries. We claim the idea that urban agriculture in developed countries should be fostered with emerging growing practices and edible green infrastructures, such as vertical farming, hydroponics, aeroponic, aquaponic, and rooftop greenhouses. Notwithstanding the limitations of traditional urban farming activities, innovative and disruptive solutions and short food supply chains of fresh agricultural products might play a positive role in lessening uncertainties from global systemic risks.

Decision making and coordination of fresh agriculture product supply chain considering fairness concerns

This paper investigates decisions in a supply chain of fresh agricultural products considering fairness concerns. By considering a two-echelon supply chain consisting of a retailer and a manufacturer, this paper discusses the effect of the manufacturer’s fairness concerns and the retailer’s fairness concerns on the fresh agriculture product supply chain within the framework of Nash bargaining. Meanwhile, a revenue-sharing contract is designed to coordinate the supply chain with fairness concerns. The results show that the manufacturer’s behavioral tendency of fairness concerns will reduce their fresh-keeping effort; thereby, the freshness of products and market demand will also decrease. The behavioral tendencies of fairness concerns of both sides reduce the overall effectiveness of the supply chain and adversely affect the stability of the fresh produce supply chain. Both the optimal retail price and the fresh-keeping effort can be achieved while all parties get higher utilities under the revenue-sharing contract in comparison to the case without coordination.

Social and natural risk factor correlation in China's fresh agricultural product supply.

The perishable nature of fresh agricultural products and their vulnerability to environmental impacts make fresh agricultural product supplies susceptible to more complex social risks and unpredictable natural risks. This study identifies 13 social and natural risk factors that could adversely affect the fresh agricultural product supply and uses ISM and MICMAC to develop a hierarchical structure of the risks to analyze the correlation of these risk factors. The results showed that these risk factors have a strong positive correlation, a reasonable risk-sharing mechanism should be established for the fresh agricultural product supply and the improvement in the supervision error correction system should be strengthened.

Control of Whitefly (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae), Trialeurodes vaporariorum, with Electron Beam and X-Ray Radiation of Fresh Strawberies for Export.

Strawberry (Fragaria ananassa Duch) is one of the representative fresh agricultural products exported overseas from South Korea. The greenhouse whitefly (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae), Trialeurodes vaporariorum, is an economically important insect pest of commercial strawberries in South Korea. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the effects of electron beam and X-ray on the development and reproduction of T. vaporariorum. To determine the radiation dose as a quarantine treatment for strawberry, T. vaporariorum were placed at the top, middle, and bottom location in boxes filled with strawberry fruits and irradiated. Eggs were completely inhibited from hatching at 50 Gy, and adult emergence of 3rd nymphs was completely suppressed at 150 Gy in both electron beam and X-ray. Some adults spawning occurred at 100 Gy. However, F1 hatchability was completely suppressed. The results suggest that T. vaporariorum was the most radiotolerant to both of ionization energy at the nymph stage. The dosimetry results showed that the penetrating power of ionizing radiation in boxes filled with strawberry fruits was the lowest at the bottom location. A treatment dose of 150 Gy is adaptable as a quarantine treatment to T. vaporariorum nymph in strawberry fruit. Our results indicate that ionizing radiation could be recommendable as a phytosanitary treatment for quarantine.

A Decision Support System for Planning New Products Introductions in Fresh Produce Supply Chains

This research develops an initial proposal of a Decision Support System –DSS– to plan the production and distribution of new fresh agricultural products. This system is based on a hierarchical approach, which can be applied to enterprises as a planning module or as a stand-alone system for crop production. In this paper is stressed the importance of the DSS for small and medium-sized companies, or for small group of growers that need to improve coordination between their growing and market decisions. The DSS covers the strategic, tactical and operational decisions for every season, focusing on new product introduction. The aim of DSS is increasing the competitiveness of growers in a highly variable and complex marketplace. The agri-food sector still needs evolving to meet increasing demands, understand particular tastes of new consumers and evaluating the requirements of new players.

Pathogenicity of three entomopathogenic fungi against the Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata (Wiedemann) (Diptera: Tephritidae)

The use of pesticides against the Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata (Wiedemann) (Diptera: Tephritidae) as a tool to control the pest has become an obstacle to the fresh agricultural products export to many countries that restrict pesticides residues. The effectiveness of three local strains of entomopathogenic fungi: Metarhizium anisopliae, Beauveria bassiana, and Paecilomyces lilacinus against the adult and immature stages of C. capitata was evaluated under laboratory conditions. Obtained results showed that M. anisopliae and B. bassiana were superior in its pathogenicity and potential to kill the pest than P. lilacinus. These results may be important to be used for the control of the pest in IPM program.

Preserving relational contract stability of fresh agricultural product supply chains

<p style='text-indent:20px;'>Since agricultural cooperatives have developed rapidly under the farmland transfer policy in China, they play an important role in the new operation pattern for China's fresh agricultural product supply chains. To enhance current agricultural supply chains' stability, we consider a three-level (farmer-cooperative-retailer) fresh agricultural product supply chain, conduct quantitative analysis of the impact of the quantity flexibility contract, and compare the impact of the relational contract with that of the quantity flexibility contract on the freshness and the profit. Our results show that a suitable relational contract can improve the freshness and increase the profit of the three-level supply chain, but cannot fully guarantee its stability. Furthermore, the government's subsidy policy can improve the relational contract stability of the fresh agricultural product supply chain by providing the protection price contract mechanism of the agricultural product and the cold chain facility subsidy contract.

Faktor-Faktor yang Mempengaruhi Niat dan Keputusan Konsumen Membeli Sayuran dan Buah Secara Online

Compared to other goods, online trading on fresh agricultural products such as vegetables and fruit is still relatively new for the Indonesian people. What drives this growing interest in purchasing agricultural products online? This study aims to examine the factors influence consumers' intentions in purchasing vegetables and fruit online and further analyzes the influence of purchase intentions on consumers’ decision to make the purchases online. The study was based on analysis of 146 users of online vetabales stores in various more than 10 online platfom accessible in Indonesia from July to August 2018. Users are aged from 15 to more than 54 years. Using seven exogenous latent variables predicted to influence purchase intentions, this study found four variables which proved to influence purchasing intentions, namely perceived usefulness, perceived price, income, and electronic word of mouth. Three variables were perceived ease of use, trust, and perceived risk prevention does not affect the purchase intention. The purchase intention as the first endogenous latent variable proved to influence consumer purchasing decisions as the second endogenous latent variable.

Optimization Application of Fresh Agricultural Products Efficient Logistics Distribution System from the Perspective of Big Data

As a sunrise industry in the development of modern agriculture, the development of fresh agricultural products industry has a huge space. Because of its various categories, and planting all over the country, the logistics distribution problems. The idea of “Internet +” modern agriculture combines big data with fresh agricultural logistics. By analyzing the current situation and mode of logistics distribution of fresh agricultural products, we find out the weak links of fresh agricultural products logistics distribution, and analyze the best way of fresh agricultural products logistics distribution system by using big data technology, which can effectively reduce the wastage of fresh agricultural products in logistics and transportation. Provide optimization platform for logistics distribution between regions. It is expected to provide important theoretical and practical guidance for the development of modern logistics big data of fresh agricultural products.

Optimal financing and operation strategy of fresh agricultural supply chain

Increased market demand and expanded scales of production of fresh agricultural products by small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) have highlighted the challenge of funding sufficient infrastructure. Additional costs to improve the freshness of produce makes the optimal financial and operational policies different for these enterprises. On the basis of the characteristics of the fresh agricultural supply chain, this paper analyses the financing strategies adopted by SMEs and obtains optimal operational and financing strategies for SMEs in six different situations. The analysis shows that the optimal level of financing by SMEs is not only affected by the financing rate, but also negatively related to the freshness effort cost coefficient, and is positively related to the sensitivity coefficient of market freshness. Moreover, although the cost of improving the freshness level of the producte is only borne by the SME, the supply chain cannot maximise profit from the optimal financial strategies of SMEs. Shouldering the fresh effort cost also lessens the optimal financing requirement of the SME compared with that of the entire supply chain. The difference is affected by the fresh effort cost coefficient.

Analysis on Influencing Factors of Development of Agricultural Product Cold Chain Logistics in Jilin Province, China

Jilin province has a rich variety of agricultural and sideline products. The circulation of agricultural products needs the support of cold chain logistics. The development of cold chain logistics in Jilin province is lagging behind, which leads to waste of agricultural products and decrease of farmers' income. As a result, this article from the perspective of cold chain logistics development, extracted the influence factors of fresh agricultural products cold chain logistics development in Jilin province, using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) on the degree of restriction factors, weight analysis found that agricultural products cold chain logistics costs, information technology application and market-based degree of cold chain logistics is the three main factors for the development of Jilin province agricultural cold chain logistics, and puts forward the development plan, in order to guide the development direction of Jilin agricultural cold chain logistics.

A Research on Fresh-Keeping Strategies for Fresh Agricultural Products from the Perspective of Green Transportation

This paper studies the impact of fresh-keeping effort (FKE) investment strategies from the perspective of green transportation on a fresh-product supply chain (FSC) system for the purpose of reducing the emission of harmful gases and waste of resources. A supplier–buyer structure in an FSC system is modeled under two approaches consisting of the fixed FKE model and the variable FKE model. Then the paper analyzes the effect of optimal FKE level on retailer’s profit and product freshness under two different approaches, and finds that there is space to be improved in the two approaches which were further optimized. Finally, the proposed models are approved with a dataset from a real-life case study. Under the above two approaches, not only profits can be increased in retail enterprises but also the freshness level of fresh agricultural products (FAP) can be improved and reduced the consumption of resources. The results show that there is an optimal investment level of FKE under different strategies, and the maximum profit could be obtained by keeping fresh at this level. Moreover, the fixed FKE will not increase the average freshness of fresh produce in a sales cycle, and the adjusted FKE can effectively improve the average freshness.

In-transit cold treatment: a case of institutional path dependence

AbstractIn-transit cold treatment consists of exposing food commodities – generally fresh agricultural products – to temperatures approaching 0 °C for a variable number of days during shipping in purpose-equipped containers in order to manage the risks of quarantine contamination. In this paper, we show that in-transit cold treatment is frequently required in the international trade of apples potentially affected by Mediterranean fruit fly (Ceratitis Capitata), despite the existence of potentially less costly and equally effective alternative means of applying the same treatment, in particular ‘cold storage’. We then try to understand why these alternative methods do not emerge spontaneously or become more widespread. We suggest that technical aspects and their respective costs are not always the most important factors. Transaction costs may also come into play. In accordance with ‘institutional path dependence’ literature, we suggest that the negotiation costs a country has to bear in order to encourage its trading partners to adopt an alternative treatment are high enough for it to be preferable to continue using the current solution, despite its higher adoption cost.

An in situ-Synthesized Gene Chip for the Detection of Food-Borne Pathogens on Fresh-Cut Cantaloupe and Lettuce.

Fresh foods are vulnerable to foodborne pathogens which cause foodborne illness and endanger people’s life and safety. The rapid detection of foodborne pathogens is crucial for food safety surveillance. An in situ-synthesized gene chip for the detection of foodborne pathogens on fresh-cut fruits and vegetables was developed. The target genes were identified and screened by comparing the specific sequences of Salmonella Typhimurium, Vibrio parahemolyticus, Staphylococcus aureus, Listeria monocytogenes, and Escherichia coli O157:H7 from the National Center for Biotechnology Information database. Tiling array probes were designed to target selected genes in an optimized hybridization system. A total of 141 specific probes were selected from 3,227 hybridization probes, comprising 26 L. monocytogenes, 24 S. aureus, 25 E. coli O157:H7, 20 Salmonella Typhimurium, and 46 V. parahemolyticus probes that are unique to this study. The optimized assay had strong amplification signals and high accuracy. The detection limit for the five target pathogens on fresh-cut cantaloupe and lettuce was approximately 3 log cfu/g without culturing and with a detection time of 24 h. The detection technology established in this study can rapidly detect and monitor the foodborne pathogens on fresh-cut fruits and vegetables throughout the logistical distribution chain, i.e., processing, cleaning, fresh-cutting, packaging, storage, transport, and sale, and represents a valuable technology that support the safety of fresh agricultural products.

Inventory Optimization of Fresh Agricultural Products Supply Chain Based on Agricultural Superdocking

The “agricultural superdocking” mode which has been strong supported by the government has become the main way for fresh agricultural products to enter the market in China. Based on the analysis of fresh agricultural products supply chain inventory management under the “agricultural superdocking” mode, this paper constructs an integrated inventory model for fresh agricultural products of “farmers’ professional cooperatives + distribution centers + supermarkets.” Considering multiple members at each echelon of a supply chain, a model that maximizes the overall profit of the supply chain is proposed. The model assumes that the market demand of fresh agricultural products is affected by freshness and sales prices, and the distribution center is responsible for not only storage, processing, and distribution but also coordinating the production and supply information of farmers’ professional cooperatives and the order sales information of supermarkets. An improved genetic algorithm is developed to solve the nonlinear optimization problem. Results of a case study show that the optimal supply and replenishment strategy under the given supply chain distribution process are obtained.

Research on S2B2C E-commerce Model of Fresh Agricultural Products in the Field of Social E-commerce

Traditional e-commerce is facing the problems of exhaustion of traffic, slowdown of growth and decentralization of sales channels. At this time, social e-commerce is emerging. As one of the new modes of social e-commerce, S2B2C social e-commerce model has many advantages, such as reducing the purchase cost of enterprises, improving the standardization of the products delivered. The application of S2B2C e-commerce model in retail of agricultural products can solve the problems of difficult warehousing, logistics and low standardization. Based on a brief introduction of social e-commerce and S2B2C mode, this paper analyzed and studied the S2B2C mode of fresh agricultural products from the perspective of social e-commerce, and provided the basic technical framework for the implementation of S2B2C mode.

Research on the Influence of E-commerce service quality of fresh Agricultural products on customer satisfaction

Analyzing the influence of service quality on customer satisfaction can help fresh e-commerce enterprises to better understand their own service level, formulate better service strategies and improve their competitive advantages, so as to promote the sustainable and healthy development of fresh e-commerce industry. In this paper, first of all, with the aid of web crawler, acquisition of jingdong mall fresh category contains fruit, vegetables, meat and seafood aquaculture 4 products on the number of online comments and evaluation star, and word frequency statistics and extract the data collected from online reviews of consumers to pay attention to the quality of service measures, after using qualitative analysis software - NVivo coding and grade, finally, the variable of descriptive statistics, correlation analysis and regression analysis. The results show that the tangibility, reliability, empathy and responsiveness of service quality have significant influence on customer satisfaction, and other evaluation indexes of guarantee quality have significant influence on customer satisfaction except delivery.

Analysis on the Influencing Factors of the Green Supply Chain Performance of Fresh Agricultural Products under the Cloud Logistics Model

The development of green supply chain of fresh agricultural products under the cloud logistics model is the demand of the times.This paper constructs four primary evaluation indicators and 19 secondary evaluation indicators. AHP is used to analyze the factors affecting the performance of the supply chain of fresh agricultural products under the cloud logistics model. Finally, the degree of influence of each influencing factor was determined. The analysis results provide a theoretical reference for the steady development of the green supply chain of fresh agricultural products under the cloud logistics model.

高铁与公路物流联运的生鲜农产品路径规划

高铁与公路物流联运的生鲜农产品路径规划