Technological Innovation, Adoption, and Implementation in Agri-Food Supply Chains

A special issue of Agriculture (ISSN 2077-0472). This special issue belongs to the section "Agricultural Economics, Policies and Rural Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 25 February 2025 | Viewed by 126

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
School of Management, Swansea University, Swansea SA1 8EN, UK
Interests: agri-food industry; supply chain risk management; supply chain resilience; decision-making; knowledge management; sustainable supply chain
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
Plymouth Business School, University of Plymouth, Plymouth PL4 8AA, UK
Interests: agri-food supply chain; decision support systems; knowledge management; lean operations; sustainable supply chain

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Agri-food supply chains (AFSCs) represent the interconnected events, from farm to fork, that include all the stages of production, processing, wholesaling, distribution, and consumption. AFSCs aim to provide sustainable, affordable, safe, and sufficient food, fibre, and fuel to consumers. However, AFSCs are facing various challenges that make it difficult to undertake these tasks. For example, climate change causes extreme weather conditions that may affect farm production, and geopolitical events can result in increases in the costs of agrichemicals and fertilizers. In the face of increasingly uncertain business and environmental environments, the only feasible way to ensure smooth and effective operations in AFSCs is by facilitating, adopting, and implementing technological innovations. These include intelligent greenhouses, water and fertilizer integrated systems, automatic harvesters and tractors, drones, and cloud computing, and they are currently being developed and gradually applied to different stages of AFSCs. To contribute to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), such as SDG 2, which is Zero Hunger, we are launching this Special Issue to explore the adoption and implementation of technological innovations in AFSCs. This Special Issue welcomes contributions on the following themes (although this list is not exclusive):

  • Literature reviews on agri-food technological innovations;
  • Adoption and implementation of technological innovations to enhance AFSC performance;
  • Factors facilitating the adoption of technological innovations in AFSCs;
  • Barriers impeding the adoption of technological innovations in AFSCs;
  • Technological innovations that support the digitalization of AFSCs;
  • Other themes relevant to technological innovations, adoption, and implementation in AFSCs.

Theoretical and empirical papers relevant to this topic are welcome. Authors are encouraged to use various methodologies and adopt a range of theoretical frameworks.

Dr. Guoqing Zhao
Dr. Huilan Chen
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Agriculture is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • agri-food supply chain
  • technological innovations
  • adoption and implementation of technological innovations
  • digitalization of agri-food supply chains

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Published Papers

This special issue is now open for submission.
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