Food System Dynamics (E-Journals)
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The Unanticipated Promise of Sustainable Agricultural Supply Chains
Full text linkThe current focus on sustainability in food production has had the the unintended benefit of solving the biggest problems in the agri-food system. Stretching from input providers through farmers and retailers to the final consumer, the agricultural supply chain throughout time has been plagued by twin problems of information and investment. Information from the market has not flowed from the primary producer due to fragmentation, poor cooperation, and transactional – and often adversarial – relationships between farmers, processors and retailers. Financial incentives and investment capital have also failed to move through the chain as actors compete to reduce costs for retailers, who have sold consumers on the idea that lowest price equals highest value.
Investigating the Varying Effect of Attitudes, Behavior and Socioeconomic Charactersitics on the Investment Behavior of Arable Crop and Tree Farmers
Full text linkThe present paper examines the attitudes and investment behavior of arable crop farmers in a comparativecontext with farmers that specialize in tree farming (fruit and nuts). The paper reveals that there existsignificant differences on the investment behavior of the two groups. It also shows that various attitudes suchas the pro-environmental stance, acceptance of EU identity and farming motive as well as farmers behaviorregarding research and information engagement have a different impact on the investment behavior of thetwo groups as this is revealed by a series of correlation analyses. The results of the paper are expected to bevery useful for guiding policy makers in drawing effective policies for mobilizing the two groups of farmerstoward the improvement and modernization of their farms
How Retailers’ Assortment Strategies and Food Prices Are Linked: Some Empirical Evidence for Germany
Full text linkThe economics of grocery retailing is dominated by studies on pricing behaviour and the role of prices for thecompetitive position of retailers. Linkages to product policy have rarely been analyzed although themanagement literature indicates that an attractive assortment is one of the most important determinants ofconsumers’ store choices or even the most important one. Therefore, we raise the question how the retailers’assortments and their price level are linked. After a literature review on the role of assortments and theirinfluence on consumers and food prices, we analyze a large dataset for eight major German online retailers andtheir whole assortments of foods and beverages. It is investigated whether and how the assortments of onlineretailers affect their overall price level for foods and beverages. The econometric analysis reveals that variousindicators of retailers’ product assortments drive the price level: (i) A deeper assortment of an online retailerraises his price level of foods and beverages significantly. (ii) The organization of the website and, thus,consumers’ transaction costs, matter too. (iii) There are strong retailer-specific fixed effects on the price levelwhich may picture further assortment variables such as the breadth of the assortment or the private-labelshare
A systematic and critical review of life cycle approaches to assess circular economy pathways in the agri-food sector
Full text linkThis study provides a literature review of life cycle approaches used to assess circular economy (CE) pathways in the agri-food sector. The scope of this review is to understand how and how much the LC-based analysis is useful to evaluate if CE strategies are more sustainable than linear/traditional economic models in agri-food production systems. To carry out the systematic and critical literature review the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) protocol was employed. The literature search was performed employing scientific databases (Scopus and Web of Science). The results highlight that 52 case studies out of 84 (62% of the total) use stand-alone life cycle assessment (LCA) to evaluate the benefits/impacts of circular economy strategies. Only eight studies (9.5%) deal with the life cycle costing (LCC) approach combined with other analyses, while no paper deals with the social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) methodology. We argue that experts in life cycle methodologies must strive to adopt some key elements to ensure that the results obtained fit perfectly with the measurements of circularity and that these can even be largely based on a common basis
FreshAnalytics – Developing a Platform for AI optimisation of the food supply chain
No full textWithin the forerunner project of FreshAnalytics, referred to as FreshIndex, project partners dealt with the development of algorithms and the underlying models allowing for the seamless monitoring of storage and transport temperature as well as the analysis of transmitting sensor data via GS1 standards along the whole supply chain in order to allow for a dynamic best before date. The follow up project FreshAnalytics will work on a digital base system for uniform data management along the food chain and providing a food-specific tool library for value-added services. The consortium will develop demonstrators for a cloud-base foundational system serving as a supervising system for storage conditions and product quality of groceries along the supply chain from manufacturer to retail and consumer
Perception of Quality Attributes in Short Agri-food Chains
Full text linkThis paper aims to identify quality attributes in products from short agri-food chains, highlighting the perception of these attributes in three types of short chains (face-to-face, spatial proximity, and spatially extended). We conducted a survey with 904 consumers in six distribution channels. The results indicate that the perception of quality attributes for consumers in short agri-food chains is not homogeneous. The results also shed light on the mechanisms adopted for transmitting information from producer to consumer in spatially extended short chains, restricted to the use of seals or brands
Dynamics and diversity of innovation support services: especially networking service activities on selected agro-food innovation cases in Madagascar and Burkina Faso
Full text linkIn this contribution, we have analysed the “dynamics and diversity of innovation support services, especially networking, facilitation and brokerage service situations as key for influencing successful outcome of innovation processes”?. Results indicate that service activities linked with “enhancing access to resources” and “offering capacity building, stand out as dominant across all three phases of innovation processes for the four innovation cases studied. This implies, support actors and beneficiaries of services seem to attach more importance to technical service activities (e.g. training) and access to resources (e.g. technical, financial resources) as well as facilitating market access over soft skills related service activities such as networking facilitation and brokerage, institutional support for niche innovations, advisory and consultancy and demand articulation. Nevertheless, a cross-cutting view of especially networking service activity reveals its presence in varied dynamics, diversity and forms. We, therefore, recommend that to enhance the key role of networking in any attempt at accompanying and supporting innovation processes, this service function: 1) should be considered as cross-cutting, embedded in every service function and service situation and 2) its specific activities should be sub-categorised under intended networking service activities and side-effect networking service activities all driven by both service providers and beneficiaries of these services for a better maximization of their expected impact on the success of targeted innovations under promotion
Consumers’ contribution to a climate neutral EU: What influences the adoption of food-related mitigation options?
Full text linkThe main aim of this contribution is to identify factors that influence consumers’ willingness to adopt food-relatedoptions to mitigate climate change and reveal how these factors are interlinked. In-depth interviews were carriedout with 32 consumers in Germany, France and the UK; the results were analysed and described in the context ofAlphabet Theory. The allocation of findings from the interviews to the theoretical framework helps to identifyinterrelations, to provide explanations and thereby achieve to take a holistic view on the topic, without neglectingcontextual information. The findings of this study indicate that a higher level of knowledge will result in morepersonal responsibility assumed by the consumers and will increase their willingness to adopt mitigation options.Hence, public information campaigns and education programs initiated to enhance consumers’ knowledge onclimate-friendly food choices. At the same time, climate-friendly food products need to be easily available andidentifiable to help consumers to act according to their attitudes
Milking challenges while drinking foreign milk: the case of Ghana’s dairy sector
Full text linkWhile the domestic milk production sector of Ghana remains stagnant over the years, dairy processing on the other hand is continually witnessing growth relying largely on milk powder and other dairy products imports mainly from EU member countries. The EU is blamed for the underdevelopment of the domestic dairy sector of many African nations. However, evidence that either prove or refute these growing criticisms are missing. This study was thus initiated to examine Ghana’s dairy sector with an emphasis on those parts of the value chain where imported milk powder is used. The study shows that the dairy processing industry is continually expanding relying largely on milk powder imports mainly from EU member countries. Also, processors expect an increase in consumer preferences for more diversified dairy products in the near future. This implies further growth of the processing industry which already relies largely on imported input. The study identified myriads of challenges facing the Ghanaian dairy sector which altogether contribute to its inability to contribute to the processing industry’s needs. Notwithstanding, any attempt to address the challenges of the sector should focus not only on economic and political aspects such as self-sufficiency, sovereignty, and trade dependency but also climate conditions, the use of natural resources and their subsequent environmental impacts should be considered
The Impact of a Visual Cheap Talk Script in an Online Choice Experiment
Full text linkHypothetical bias causes willingness to pay (WTP) values to be inaccurate and is a prevalent issue in choice experiments. Research has shown that a “cheap talk” script may reduce hypothetical bias ; however, it is uncertain which cheap talk script format is the best at controlling hypothetical bias . Therefore, we conduct a choice experiment using a between-subjects design in which half of the articipants saw a “visual” cheap talk script and half saw a “text” cheap talk script prior to the choice sets. Random parameter logit model results indicate hypothetical bias was more prevalent when participants saw the visual cheap talk script compared to the more conventional text cheap talk script. Text learners also appeared to be less prone to hypothetical bias than visual learners