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Coming full circle in agricultural supply chains Of late, the planet is facing serious problems of sorts such as global warming, natural disasters, and unsustainable production and consumption practices, which have put the global supply chains under constant threat. Adding to it, our linear business models worsen the situation on the sustainability front. Other sectors included, the agricultural supply chains are critical for ensuring food security of a nation and these are marred by issues such as cropland reduction, supply-demand imbalances, and a fierce competition for resources. Therefore, a paradigm shift is required from the current linear practices to circular economy practices. The article discusses how digital technologies can enhance circularity in the agricultural supply chains and pave the way for sustainable agricultural practices.
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HE Agricultural Supply Chains (ASC) organizations can leverage various CE business models (such as ReSOLVE: Regenerating, Sharing, Optimizing, Exchanging, Virtualizing, and Cycling of Materials; various R strategies such as Reuse, Reduce, Recycle, Remanufacture, and Refurbish) for implementing CE practices. The adoption of CE practices will result in creating a regenerative economy. Technologies such as blockchain have provenance feature and can help in improving produce traceability, thereby effectively reduce food frauds and improve product recall. It is estimated that with the current linear practices, the world will soon run out of steam and therefore, a paradigm
4 CELERITY November - December 2021
shift is required that focuses on the circular models instead of wasteful linear ones. Studies have highlighted that industrial operation in various sectors across the globe are majorly responsible for resource depletion/ scarcity and environmental degradation. The recent pandemic has highlighted how fragile global supply chains are: economic slowdown, flatlined trade across geographies due to global lockdown, reduced order volumes, and payment delays to name a few. The need of the hour is a resilient business model that will lead to sustainable growth while optimizing resource utilization. With meteoric urbanization, everincreasing population, and global phenomena such as climate change and environmental degradation, it is high time that business models in India move
Dr. Rohit Sharma holds a Ph.D. in Operations and Supply Chain Management from the National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), Mumbai. His research interests include agricultural supply chain operations, sustainable operations, and he is currently exploring the applications of industry 4.0 technologies in agricultural supply chains. He has worked previously with India’s number one agricultural commodities exchange, National Commodities and Derivatives (NCDEX) Limited. At NCDEX, he and his team pioneered the RFID project and successfully executed the one of its kind, RFID tagging of agricultural commodities.
towards circular economy (CE) practices. The sustainability of Agricultural Supply Chains (ASC) in India is a major concern for a variety of critical stakeholders. With the current business models and the technologies, it is very uncertain that the food security and safety of the current and the future generations will be met. Various supply chain shocks and supply-demand imbalances challenge the affordability of food by certain masses. It is reported that annually, the ASCs lose produce to the tune of US$143 million annually and majority of these losses take place in the initial phases of the ASCs (i.e., from production to distribution). This wasted food not only produces a humongous carbon footprint (46.5 MT) but wastes a lot of scarce resources. Lack of information uptake,
