Resilience in agri-food supply chains: a framework for risk assessment and strategy development

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the critical importance of resilience in the agri-food supply chain (AFSC) to ensure a reliable, uninterrupted, and disruption-free food supply for the ever-increasing global population. This study aims to comprehensively rank the multitude of risks faced by the AFSC, which have predominantly been examined in isolation. It develops a strategic framework for mitigating these risks by implementing appropriate resilient strategies. The study employs novel hybrid multi-criteria decision-making techniques, including the fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (F-AHP), fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (F-TOPSIS), and fuzzy quality function deployment (F-QFD), to prioritise risks, assign weights, and rank various resilient strategies. The study contributes to the existing literature by proposing a systematic and robust strategic framework to facilitate decision-making processes in AFSC resilience management. It advances theoretical understanding and provides practical insights and recommendations for enhancing resilience in AFSC management.

KEYWORDS:

• Agri-food supply chain
• risk assessment
• resilient strategies
• MCDM
• supply chain management
• supply chain resilience
• food supply chain disruptions
• decision-making framework

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, R S, upon reasonable request.