Conceptualizing sustainability and resilience in value chains in times of multiple crises-notes on agri-food chains

Alexander Follmann, Peter Dannenberg, Nina Baur, Boris Braun, Grit Walther, Amelie Bernzen, Jan Boerner, Michael Bruentrup, Martin Franz, Linde Goetz, Anna-Katharina Hornidge, Carolin Hulke, Tinoush Jamali Jaghdani, Aarti Krishnan, Elmar Kulke, Inez Labucay, Gilbert Mbaka Nduru, Thomas Neise, Priya Priyadarshini, Javier Revilla Diez, Johanna Ruett, Christian Scheller, Thomas Spengler and Emmanuel Sulle

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Global and regional agri-food value chains feed societies and are an income source for hundreds of millions of farmers around the world. They are also target areas for action to achieve a global sustainability transformation. Agri-food chains are highly vulnerable in the context of multiple crises, including the global environmental crisis, geopolitical fragmentation, armed conflicts and wars, and the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Measures to increase chain resilience are widely discussed; however, some such measures contradict sustainability measures. While there has been considerable research on the sustainability and resilience of agri-food chains, few studies have integrated both perspectives or outlined potential synergies and trade-offs. Therefore, this interdisciplinary literature review sketches possible contours for a synthesized research agenda on sustainability and resilience for agri-food chains during multiple crises. We argue that such an agenda should include, amongst others, • a more differentiated and critical perspective on the importance of value chain characteristics and developments (e.g., power structures, capabilities, up- and downgrading, and the borders of chain internalities and externalities) • a more comprehensive perspective that includes global and regional contexts and relations (e.g., whole-chain perspectives that integrate agro-input supply) • an actor-oriented approach that interrogates aspects of inequality, cost-sharing, and the potential benefits of sustainability and resilience for different actors along a value chain (i.e., sustainability and resilience for whom?)

Keywords: agriculture; global production networks; global value chains; resilience; supply chains; sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J01 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20 pages
Date: 2024-12-21
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-env and nep-int
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Published in Die Erde, 21, December, 2024, 155(1), pp. 29 - 48. ISSN: 0013-9998

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