Fresh Agricultural Products Supply Chain Research Articles

Vulnerability of fresh agricultural products supply chain: Assessment, interrelationship analysis and control strategies

Most research in fresh agricultural products supply chain (FAPSC) vulnerability identification and evaluation is based on independent perspectives. Few studies have studied the interrelationships, transmission mechanisms, and control strategies from a network approach. Given this, this paper first identifies 7 vulnerability categories and 36 vulnerability factors based on empirical data collected from practitioners of FAPSC using grounded theory (GT). The interrelationships among the identified vulnerability factors are established immediately afterward based on complex network theory. Finally, key vulnerability factors and vulnerability impact transmission paths are identified based on the results by calculating the basic network characteristic indicators. The results show that market supply-demand imbalance and human resources issues are the key vulnerability factors. The five factors of market supply-demand imbalance, environmental pollution, socio-economic downturn, human resources issues, and arable land area as the intermediate transmission factors of the vulnerability network play a key role in vulnerability transmission. Based on this, strategies such as information sharing and measuring the environmental performance of fresh agricultural product suppliers are proposed. This study can help stakeholders control the vulnerabilities and ensure the stable operation of the FAPSC.

Optimal government subsidy strategy for fresh agricultural products supply chain under adverse weather: a two-stage dynamic game model

ABSTRACT To investigate the effects of various government subsidies on the decision of agricultural products supply chain under adverse weather, this paper depicts the random profit function of adverse weather affecting the output of fresh agricultural products. Then, both the centralised and decentralised decision-making models are set with various government subsidies, i.e. no subsidy, output subsidy, procurement subsidy, one-time subsidy to company and one-time subsidy to farmer. Through comparative analysis and numerical analysis, we explore the effects of adverse weather and different government subsidies on the supply chain decisions including planting effort, procurement price and retail price.

Decisions of dual-channel fresh agricultural product supply chains based on information sharing

PurposeThis paper studies the optimal decision-making and coordination problem of a dual-channel fresh agricultural product (FAP) supply chain. The purpose is to analyze the impact of information sharing on optimal decisions and propose a coordination mechanism to encourage supply chain members to share information.Design/methodology/approachThe two-echelon dual-channel FAP supply chain includes a manufacturer and a retailer. By using the Stackelberg game theory and the backward induction method, the optimal decisions are obtained under information symmetry and asymmetry and the coordination contract is designed.FindingsThe results show that supply chain members should comprehensively evaluate the specific situation of product attributes, coefficient of freshness-keeping cost and network operating costs to make decisions. Asymmetric information can exacerbate the deviation of optimal decisions among supply chain members and information sharing is always beneficial to manufacturers but not to retailers. The improved revenue-sharing and cost-sharing contract is an effective coordination mechanism.Practical implicationsThe conclusions can provide theoretical guidance for supply chain managers to deal with information asymmetry and improve the competitiveness of the supply chain.Originality/valueThis paper combines the three characteristics that are most closely related to the reality of supply chains, including horizontal and vertical competition of different channels, the perishable characteristics of FAPs and the uncertainty generated by asymmetric demand information.

Research on information collaboration strategy of fresh agricultural products supply chain under carbon cap-and-trade

The information coordination of fresh agricultural products supply chain is conducive to improving the overall efficiency and competitiveness of the supply chain, and reducing carbon emissions. Under the carbon cap-and-trade policy, this paper constructed an evolutionary game model of supply chain information collaboration involving a fresh agricultural products supplier, a cold chain logistics service provider and a fresh agricultural products retailer, explored the selection of information collaboration strategies of each subject, and simulated it with system dynamics. The results show that: The stability strategy of the game system is related to the initial willingness of each subject. When any two parties participate in information collaboration, the other party will also choose to participate in collaboration. In addition, the choice of information collaboration strategy of the subject is also related to the collaborative planning ability, collaborative strategy formulation ability, consumers’ preference, the initial cost of each subject, revenue sharing and cost sharing mechanism, government subsidies, government regulation and carbon cap-and-trade policy. It is worth noting that the collaborative planning capability is more conducive to promoting the subject to choose information collaborative strategy than the collaborative strategy formulation capability; the carbon trading price has a greater impact on the subject’s participation in collaboration, while the total amount of carbon quota has no impact on the choice of the subject’s information collaboration strategy. Furthermore, based on the research results, the corresponding management suggestions are put forward from the two aspects of the government and the participants.

Pricing of fresh agricultural product supply chain under transportation interruption

With the trend of global economic integration and the improvement of logistics, transportation, and storage technology, regional restrictions on the sales of fresh agricultural products have gradually decreased. At the same time, due to traffic accidents, natural disasters, and other factors, the possibility of interruption in the transportation supply chain of fresh agricultural products has been increased. This article examines a three-level fresh supply chain with the possibility of transportation interruption. The Stackelberg method is used to solve the equilibrium solution, and the results under centralized and decentralized models are analyzed. We found that the increase in the probability and duration of transportation interruptions actually leads to less investment by distributors in cold chain services, resulting in increased profits for retailers and decreased profits for distributors and manufacturers.

Fresh-Keeping Decision and Coordination of Fresh Agricultural Product Supply Chain Considering Carbon Cap-and-Trade under Different Dominance

Fresh-Keeping Decision and Coordination of Fresh Agricultural Product Supply Chain Considering Carbon Cap-and-Trade under Different Dominance

Research on the Network Equilibrium of Fresh Agricultural Product Supply Chain with Third Party Logistics Participation in Decision Making

Introducing Third-party logistics into the supply chain of fresh agricultural products can reduce the logistics cost of the supply chain and improve the freshness and quality of fresh agricultural products. Taking the fresh agricultural product supply chain network, which includes three decision-making entities: fresh agricultural product suppliers, 3PL service providers, and retailers, as the research object, a fresh agricultural product supply chain network equilibrium model is constructed using variational inequality theory. The impact of 3PL service providers' logistics service level on their equilibrium transaction volume and overall profit is studied. The research results show that when Third-party logistics is involved in the supply chain of fresh agricultural products, considering the logistics service level of 3PL service providers, with the improvement of service level, the overall profit of the supply chain of fresh agricultural products increases. It is a beneficial attempt to realize the profit of the supply chain of fresh agricultural products to improve the freshness and quality of fresh agricultural products through Third-party logistics; When the logistics service level rises to a certain level, and the service level continues to improve, the overall profit growth of the supply chain decreases. It is necessary to improve the impact of logistics service level on the freshness and quality of fresh agricultural products through other forms.

Digital Economy Enables Community Group-buying Fresh Agricultural Products Supply Chain Management Optimization

In the context of China's digital economy promoting social development, this paper based on the characteristics of fresh agricultural products perishable, difficult to preserve and easy to wear, with the help of digital economy enabling model, explores the practical problems of community group purchase of fresh agricultural products, and analyzes its supply chain management. The analysis results show that the optimization of supply chain management depends on the digital economy, which can effectively do a good job in factor allocation, model innovation and information transmission, and achieve win-win benefits of multiple entities by improving product quality control, forming core competitiveness, balancing supply and demand and controlling costs, and meeting the diversity requirements of consumers. This study can explain the potential problems of the current agricultural product supply chain to a certain extent, and also provide a reference for the digital economy enabling community group-buying fresh agricultural product supply chain management optimization.

Analyzing the Effects of Government Subsidies on Dual-Channel Fresh Food Supply Chains with the Implementation of Blockchain Traceability Technology

With the rapid development of the social economy, consumer preferences have evolved significantly. Nowadays, consumers place a higher emphasis on product quality and origin. The challenge is to ensure effective supervision of the entire food production process, from farm to consumers' tables, and to address traceability and accountability issues when food safety problems arise. The emergence of blockchain technology offers a promising solution. Blockchain's decentralization and traceability capabilities can effectively monitor food status information. However, given the cost of implementing blockchain technology and the varying degrees of sensitivity consumers have to product quality and price, the question arises: should supply chains have strong incentives to adopt blockchain technology? This paper focuses on the fresh agricultural product supply chain, encompassing both online and offline retailers, and employs the Stackberg game model to examine the impact of blockchain technology adoption under a government subsidy scenario. The research findings of this article indicate that the decision to introduce blockchain technology by online suppliers is influenced by the cost associated with each unit of fresh products. Furthermore, government subsidies prove advantageous primarily for online retailers.

Research on the Supply Chain Management of Fresh Agricultural Products in Shenyang Yonghui Supermarket

Fresh agricultural products have become the most important part of supermarkets. Since fresh agri-products are perishable and have a relatively short shelf life, there are always some key problems that need to be solved in the operation of fresh agricultural products in supermarkets, such as building an efficient fresh agricultural product supply chain management system, improving logistics efficiency and storage level, reducing the cost and loss of products, and ensuring the standardized quality and safety of fresh agri-products. This article takes Shenyang Yonghui Supermarket, which operates fresh agricultural products as an example. Firstly, by analyzing the structure, logistics and procurement of Yonghui's fresh food supply chain, and combined with SWOT analysis, it puts forward countermeasures and suggestions for the optimal design of Shenyang Yonghui's fresh food supply chain.

Research on Legal Measures for Heatstroke Prevention and Freshness Preservation in Fresh Agricultural Product Supply Chain

Research on Legal Measures for Heatstroke Prevention and Freshness Preservation in Fresh Agricultural Product Supply Chain

Weak solution of non-Newtonian polytropic variational inequality in fresh agricultural product supply chain problem

Abstract In this article, we study a class of variational inequality problems with non-Newtonian polytropic parabolic operators. We introduce a mapping with an adjustable parameter to control the polytropic term, which exactly meets the conditions of Leray-Schauder fixed point theory. At the same time, we construct a penalty function to transform the variational inequality into a regular parabolic initial boundary value problem. Thus, the existence is treated with a Leray-Schauder fixed point theory as well as a suitable version of Aubin-Lions lemma. Then, the uniqueness and stability of the solution are analyzed.

Complex Evolution Game and System Dynamics Simulation on the Impact of Coevolution on the Stability of the Fresh Agricultural Products Green Supply Chain

Although optimization of a fresh agricultural products supply chain has been widely studied, not much attention was paid to the impact of coevolution on the stability of such a supply chain, especially in the green development of such a supply chain. In this paper, based on the synergy theory and by considering the green development of the supply chain, with logistic model deduction of the trading volume of the supply chain as the system order parameter, system dynamics simulation is performed, showing the influence of the coevolution mechanism of various subsystems and the complex evolution game process on the stability of the supply chain. These results indicate that excessive coevolution among subsystems is not conducive to the supply chain when it enters a stable and orderly state. Only when the coevolution ability is controlled within a certain range can each subsystem achieve maximum profit. At the same time, the simulation results demonstrate the positive impact of coevolution on the stability of the supply chain. Sensitivity analysis shows that environmental factors such as the recycling rate of rotten products and the levels of government regulation and environmental ethics regulation have a positive impact on the stability of the supply chain, for which the larger the climate impact factor is, the less conducive it is to the stability. This research report provides some guidance for the sustainable development of the fresh agricultural products supply chain.

A differential game model research on dynamic pricing and coordination of fresh agricultural products supply chain based on freshness

For the problem of optimal dynamic pricing and coordination of fresh agricultural products supply chain, the differential equations related to freshness and market needs are constructed, and the optimal control theory is used to solve the optimal strategy under centralized and decentralized decision-making, i.e., optimal selling price and optimal preservation input. The equilibrium results under the two scenarios are also compared. The comparison finds that the decentralized scenario leads to low overall supply chain profits, based on which a two-part pricing contract is proposed to coordinate the supply chain operating companies. The results show that freshness effectiveness directly impacts pricing, and the centralized scenario does not necessarily lead to high prices for fresh produce due to the ‘double marginal effect’. the two pricing contracts can successfully coordinate the supply chain. The freshness effectiveness increases the supply chain coordination ability of fresh produce suppliers, while operational inefficiencies, on the contrary, decrease the coordination ability.

Profit-Sharing Contract of the Fresh Agricultural Products Supply Chain under Community Group Purchase Mode Considering Freshness Preservation Efforts

This article constructed a four-level fresh agricultural product (FAP) supply chain with a two-stage pricing strategy under a “community group purchase (CGP) platform + direct procurement from the FAP supplier” sales model. We investigate the influence of the CGP agency’s participation in the control strategy of FAP freshness preservation efforts on the profits of supply chain stakeholders. This article discusses the effects of the FAP supplier profit-sharing ratio, the CGP agency profit-sharing ratio, and consumers’ sensitivity to FAP freshness on the supply chain stakeholders’ freshness preservation efforts. Moreover, based on the fairness preference theory, this article designed a profit-sharing contract that involves the Nash bargaining game between the FAP supplier and the CGP agency as the supply chain coordination mechanism. Modeling results revealed that: (1) The CGP agency’s freshness preservation efforts increased total supply chain profits. (2) The FAP supplier profit-sharing ratio, CGP agency profit-sharing ratio, and consumers’ sensitivity to FAP freshness have a positive correlation to the profits of the FAP supply chain and promote the coordination of the supply chain. (3) Considering fairness preferences, with the increase in FAP suppliers’ business negotiating ability, their freshness preservation efforts and fairness utility both increased gradually, while the fairness utility of the CGP agency gradually decreased.

Optimization and Coordination of the Fresh Agricultural Product Supply Chain Considering the Freshness-Keeping Effort and Information Sharing

To solve freshness-keeping problems and analyse a retailer’s information sharing strategies in the fresh agricultural product supply chain (FAPSC), often confronted with challenges in keeping agri-products fresh in an uncertain market, we study an FAPSC via a decentralized mode in which the supplier or retailer exerts the freshness-keeping effort while the retailer decides its information sharing strategies regarding private demand forecasting. We consider a contract coordination mode including three incentive contracts, cost-sharing (cs), revenue-sharing (re) and revenue-and-cost-sharing (rc), to facilitate supply chain coordination. The results show that, as opposed to the case where the supplier takes on the freshness-keeping effort, the optimal freshness-keeping effort level, wholesale price and retail price are not only affected by the retailer’s information sharing strategy but also the freshness-keeping efficiency as the retailer exerts the freshness-keeping effort. Regarding the information sharing strategy, when the freshness-keeping effort is undertaken by the retailer, sharing information sometimes benefits the supplier; however, information sharing is never preferable for the retailer. Consequently, it is necessary to explore the supply chain coordination mode via effective incentive contracts which can improve the supplier and retailer’s profit. We also numerically analyze the effects of freshness-keeping efficiency on equilibrium decisions and expected profits in the decentralized mode, and the effects of the three contract parameters on the expected profits in equilibrium in the coordination mode.

Fresh keeping decision and coordination of fresh agricultural products supply chain under carbon cap-and-trade.

Considering the carbon emissions caused by the fresh-keeping of fresh agricultural products, this paper studied the rules of fresh-keeping decision-making in the two-echelon fresh agricultural product supply chain led by suppliers under the carbon cap-and-trade policy. In addition, we designed two contracts, cost-sharing contract and two-part pricing contract, to coordinate the supplier's fresh-keeping decision and the supply chain's revenue. The results show that: whether the carbon cap-and-trade policy is implemented or not, the higher the consumer's preference for freshness and the lower the price sensitivity coefficient of consumers, the more favorable it is for suppliers to improve their fresh-keeping efforts. Under the implementation of carbon cap-and-trade policy, suppliers' fresh-keeping efforts are only related to the carbon transaction price, not the carbon cap; the higher the carbon transaction price, the less the supplier's fresh-keeping efforts, but the more the supplier's income; the smaller the cost coefficient of carbon emission reduction and the larger the coefficient of carbon emission reduction, the more favorable it is for suppliers to increase their fresh-keeping efforts; both cost-sharing contract and two-part pricing contract can coordinate the supply chain of fresh agricultural products, but they have different application scope and coordination effect. These conclusions are of great significance to the operation and management of fresh agricultural products suppliers, the improvement of consumers' quality of life and the protection of ecological environment under carbon cap-and-trade.

A New Adaptive Accelerated Levenberg–Marquardt Method for Solving Nonlinear Equations and Its Applications in Supply Chain Problems

In this paper, a new adaptive Levenberg–Marquardt method is proposed to solve the nonlinear equations including supply chain optimization problems. We present a new adaptive update rule which is a segmented function on the ratio between the actual and predicted reductions of the objective function to accept a large number of unsuccessful iterations and avoid jumping in local areas. The global convergence and quadratic convergence of the proposed method are proved by using the trust region technique and local error bound condition, respectively. In addition, we use the proposed algorithm to test on the symmetric and asymmetric linear equations. Numerical results show that the proposed method has good numerical performance and development prospects. Furthermore, we apply the algorithm to solve the fresh agricultural products supply chain optimization problems.

Interaction between joining platform blockchain technology and channel encroachment for fresh agricultural product firms

AbstractIn recent years, some e‐commerce platforms (e.g., JD.com), which allow firms to set up third‐party stores on them, have established their own blockchain technology and publicly provided blockchain technology to firms. Besides, source tracing of fresh agricultural products on blockchain is a concern for consumers. For firms selling fresh agricultural products, whether to join the platform blockchain technology to disclose product freshness and whether to set up third‐party stores on platforms are thorny problems. To research the interaction between joining the platform blockchain technology strategy and channel encroachment decision for fresh agricultural product firms, we consider four theoretical models. The main results demonstrate that whether firms set up third‐party stores on the platforms or not, their strategies of joining the platform blockchain technology are dependent on consumer's sensitivity to the freshness‐keeping effort level of fresh agricultural product, consumer's trust degree of freshness‐keeping effort level, and the unit blockchain operation cost. Besides, if firms set up third‐party stores, the willingness of joining the platform blockchain technology will increase. Firms’ channel encroachment willingness will also be affected by their joining the platform blockchain technology strategy. Moreover, when considering the fresh agricultural product supply chain, these main conclusions are still held.

Research on the Coordination of Fresh Food Supply Chain Based on the Perspective of Blockchain and Low Carbon

We consider a three-stage fresh agricultural product supply chain consisting of a supplier, a third-party logistics service provider (TPLSP), and a retailer and discuss the coordination mechanism of “revenue sharing + double cost sharing” contracts and “two-part tariff + revenue sharing + double cost sharing” contracts between the supplier, TPLSP, and the retailer. Based on this, we not only explore the conditions for supply chain full coordination and Pareto improvement but also analyze the effect of blockchain technology application cost, consumer environmental protection awareness, freshness preference, green trust level on carbon emission reduction level, fresh-keeping effort level, price decisions, and profits by comparing three different decision-making models. Results show that the improvement of the green trust level can help to improve the carbon emission reduction level, fresh-keeping effort level, price decisions, and profits. The application of blockchain technology can reduce transaction costs and improve consumer green trust levels, thereby increasing market demand and profits. When environmental protection awareness and freshness preference are higher than a certain value, the unit retail price of fresh products under decentralized decision-making is the highest with the blockchain technology applied. TPLSP can increase the wholesale, service, and retail prices of fresh products by appropriately increasing the blockchain technology application cost-sharing ratio. When 15 < T 1 < 29.2416 and 47 < T 2 < 66.0408 , “two-part tariff + revenue sharing + double cost sharing” contracts can achieve the Pareto improvement.