Policies for Rapid Mitigation of the Crisis’ Effects on Agricultural Supply Chains: A Multi-Criteria Decision Support System with Monte Carlo Simulation

Tomas Baležentis, Mangirdas Morkūnas, Agnė Žičkienė, Artiom Volkov, Erika Ribašauskienė and Dalia Štreimikienė
Additional contact information
Mangirdas Morkūnas: Institute of Economics and Rural Development, Lithuanian Centre for Social Sciences, 03220 Vilnius, Lithuania
Agnė Žičkienė: Institute of Economics and Rural Development, Lithuanian Centre for Social Sciences, 03220 Vilnius, Lithuania
Artiom Volkov: Institute of Economics and Rural Development, Lithuanian Centre for Social Sciences, 03220 Vilnius, Lithuania
Erika Ribašauskienė: Institute of Economics and Rural Development, Lithuanian Centre for Social Sciences, 03220 Vilnius, Lithuania
Dalia Štreimikienė: Institute of Economics and Rural Development, Lithuanian Centre for Social Sciences, 03220 Vilnius, Lithuania

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 21, 1-31

Abstract: This paper proposes an integrated approach towards rapid decision-making in the agricultural sector aimed at improvement of its resilience. Methodologically, we seek to devise a framework that is able to take the uncertainty regarding policy preferences into account. Empirically, we focus on the effects of COVID-19 on agriculture. First, we propose a multi-criteria decision-making framework following the Pugh matrix approach for group decision-making. The Monte Carlo simulation is used to check the effects of the perturbations in the criteria weights. Then, we identify the factors behind agricultural resilience and organize them into the three groups (food security, agricultural viability, decent jobs). The expert survey is carried out to elicit the ratings in regard to the expected effects of the policy measures with respect to dimensions of agricultural resilience. The case of Lithuania is considered in the empirical analysis. The existing and newly proposed agricultural policy measures are taken into account. The measures related to alleviation of the financial burden (e.g., credit payment deferral) appear to be the most effective in accordance with the expert ratings.

Keywords: multi-criteria decision making; resilience; crisis; Monte Carlo simulation; Lithuania; COVID-19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/21/11899/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/21/11899/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:21:p:11899-:d:666438

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().