Digital Inclusion for Resilient Post-COVID-19 Supply Chains: Smallholder Farmer Perspectives

Abstract

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has and continues to have far-reaching global economic and environmental implications. In developing economies and regions, the pandemic's disruption of the agriculture commodity supply chain has made it difficult for smallholder farmers to exist. Smallholder farmer's traditional struggles have worsened. However, technology may provide promise of improving conditions for vulnerable farmers even in a period of crises such as the COVID-19 period. In this article, we draw on lessons learned in developed and developing countries to propose critical digital transformation for building a resilient and sustainable post-COVID-19 supply chains for developing countries, especially for smallholder farmers operating in global value chains. We discuss how digital technologies and specifically digital inclusion of smallholder farmers can prevent major disruptions from damaging the livelihoods of society's most vulnerable. We discuss feasibility and provide some caveats for a post-COVID-19 digital inclusion in developing countries.

Sustainable supply chain management towards disruption and organizational ambidexterity: A data driven analysis

“… I20 Supply chain vulnerability SC vulnerability is the susceptibility or exposure to a disruptive event in the supply chain Blackhurst et al (2018) ; Azadegan et al (2020) ; Viljoen & Joubert (2018) ; Nakatani et al (2018) ; Konig & Spinler (2016) ; Chowdhury & Quaddus (2016) ; Chen et al (2015 b); Ethirajan et al (2020) . I21 Sustainability Sustainability in the SC is defined as managing the supply chain functions aligned with the social, environmental, and economic sustainability requirements of the stakeholders to reduce sustainability risks in supply chain and improve market performance Seuring & Müller (2008) ; Sharifi et al (2020) ; Chatterjee & Layton (2020) ; Chen et al (2020) ; Handfield et al (2020) ; Zhu & Krikke (2020) ; Kamble et al (2020) ; Niu et al (2020) ; Quayson et al (2020) ; Ivanov (2020) ; Shareef et al (2020) ; He et al (2020) ; Nayak & Dhaigude (2019) ; Maiyar & Thakkar (2020) . I22 Uncertainty “Uncertainty” refers to a state that cannot be directly expressed by a certain amount of information, which describes a situation that cannot be ascertained, or where there are different possibilities.…”

Agri‐food sector and entrepreneurship during the COVID‐19 crisis: A systematic literature review and research agenda

“…Thirteen studies were collected under the AGRI3 category (Butu, Brumă, Tanasă, Rodino, et al, 2020; Ciruela‐Lorenzo et al, 2020; Cowie et al, 2020; Cristobal‐Fransi et al, 2020; Di Vaio et al, 2020; Fabeil, Pazim, & Langgat, 2020; Kumar et al, 2020; Liverpool‐Tasie et al, 2020; Lucaci & Nastase, 2020; Morris & Bowen, 2020; Quayson et al, 2020; Tasnim, 2020; Yadav, Luthra, Garg, et al, 2021).…”

“…IEEE Smart Villages ensure the sustainable renewable energy services of rural communities with limited electricity access to provide reliable, cheap, and sustainable power for any technological innovation. A project that combines the Big Data Analytics and the Internet of Things (IoT), called “Transforming Africa's agriculture: eyes in the sky, smart techs on the ground” supports the use of drones for farming through the adoption of Precision Agriculture (Quayson et al, 2020). Finally, private‐sector platforms are being developed that operate as one‐stop shops for farmers to secure inputs, training, credit and a guaranteed market (Liverpool‐Tasie et al, 2020).…”

“…Indeed, the adoption of artificial intelligence technology which requires the simultaneous active participation and cooperation of all smallholder farmers (Quayson et al, 2020), contributes to the redefinition of the agri‐food business model, and leads to their distancing as it affects the social dimension and consequently achieving some SDGs (Di Vaio et al, 2020). Key steps in agri‐food development and prevention of future crises are encouraging farmers to join in companies and organizations in order to guide digital and direct marketing solutions and encouraging agri‐tech startups to cope with FPCs, FPOs and smallholders in order to jointly improve input and output supply chains (Kumar et al, 2020).…”

Resource Interaction in Smallholder Farms is Linked to Farm Sustainability: Evidence from Indian Sundarbans

“…Thus, enhancing the resilience of local food systems during this unprecedented pandemic has emerged as crucial for global food security (Bene, 2020). Technology may provide promises of improving conditions for vulnerable farmers even in a period of crisis, such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic (Quayson et al, 2020). On the other hand, constrained access to inputs has disrupted farm management and the efficient utilization of farm resources (Stephens et al, 2020).…”