Agricultural Supply Chain Risks Evaluation with Spherical Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the development of the global economy. As most developing and third world countries are heavily dependent on agriculture and agricultural imports, the agricultural supply chains (ASC) in all these countries are exposed to unprecedented risks following COVID-19. Therefore, it is vital to investigate the impact of risks and create resilient ASC organizations. In this study, critical risks associated with ASC were assessed using a novel Analytical Hierarchy Process based on spherical fuzzy sets (SF-AHP). The findings indicated that depending on the scope and scale of the organization, supply risks, demand risks, financial risks, logistics and infrastructure risks, management and operational risks, policy and regulatory risks, and biological and environmental risks all have a significant impact on ASC. This research highlighted that themost significant criterion is specified as Transportation (TP), followed by Market (MA) and Policy (PO), respectively. Meanwhile, Technology (TL) is the least significant criterion. The study's findings can help managers with a holistic view of the agriculture supply chain risk mitigation. Furthermore, this study may assist managers in sharing information about the processing of agricultural products from top to bottom to manage risk in the supply chain.

Automated summary

The outbreak of COVID-19 has had a significant impact on the global economy, particularly on the agricultural supply chains in developing and third world countries. This study assessed the critical risks associated with these supply chains and identified transportation, market, and policy as the most important factors in mitigating the risks.