Are Certified Supply Chains More Socially Sustainable? A Bargaining Power Analysis

Abstract

Food quality schemes (FQS: organic and geographical indication products) are often supposed to be more sustainable by their political advocates. We explore the social sustainability advantage of FQS through the lens of supply chains’ bargaining power (BP) distribution. We propose an indicator synthesizing different sources underlying BP (competition-based, transactional, institutional) and counting two dimensions (fair BP distribution and adaptation capacity), that we apply to 18 FQS supply chains and corresponding reference. FQS perform better than their reference products on both dimensions. This better performance is due to a combination of sources.

Determinants of small farmers' participation in contract farming in developing countries: A study in Vietnam

“…However, farmers have remaining preferences for various attributes of traditional spot markets, such as lack of product grades, cash payments, lack of delivery schedules, and ability to sell at the farm gate and sell individually (Blandon et al, 2009). The disagreements, disputes, and power imbalance between farmers and firms over quality standards, sale prices, delays in delivery, and payments can be considered primary barriers to CF and the major causes of CF project failures (Muller et al, 2021; Rehber, 2018). Additionally, risk of farmer production, loss of farmers' autonomy, technological and financial barriers, land‐use intensity, land and water pollution, and food security problems could be negative factors of farmers' participation in CF (Kirsten & Sartorious, 2002; Singh, 2002).…”

Assessing the impact of Industry 4.0 technologies on the social sustainability of agrifood companies

“…Indeed, many successful applications of I4.0 technologies in the agrifood industry stem from the collaboration between agrifood companies and external technology providers (Brookbanks & Parry, 2022;Motta et al, 2020). This can help agrifood companies circumvent skill gaps and develop their technological capability, eliciting collaboration and a more equitable distribution of value (Glavee-Geo et al, 2022;Muller et al, 2021). Furthermore, by increasing transparency and promoting communication between partners, I4.0 technologies can help agrifood companies disseminate sustainability standards throughout the supply chain (León-Bravo et al, 2017;Mani et al, 2018;Sharma et al, 2022).…”

The economic, environmental and social performance of European certified food

“…The indicator on value chain stability is the second exception. Because a value chain is only as stable as its weakest level (Muller et al, 2021), its "value chain average" is the minimum of the "bargaining power" indicator across value chain levels (Eq. 2).…”