Fraud vulnerability quantitative assessment of Wuchang rice industrial chain in China based on AHP-EWM and ANN methods

[Display omitted] •First assessment of the rice fraud vulnerability in China.•AHP-EWM and ANN methods were used to have a more objective result.•The industrial chain for Wuchang rice was highly vulnerable to fraud.•Improved regulations, policies and stiffer penalties were effective to reduce the vulnerability. Vulnerability assessment has been used in the food fraud mitigation based on the subjective judgement of industry participants and simple calculation. To have a more objective result, an improved vulnerability quantitative assessment method was proposed. The overall fraud vulnerability was described by the vulnerability of fraud factors and the health and economic impact of fraud incidents. The fraud factors were related to opportunity, motivation and control measure. Analytic hierarchy process combined with entropy weighting method (AHP-EWM) and artificial neural networking (ANN) to improve judgment accuracy. In the application in Wuchang rice industrial chain, 51 fraud factors were used in the assessment and 10 experts, 36 farmers, 15 suppliers and 15 supervisors were interviewed. Results showed that Wuchang rice industrial chain was highly vulnerable to fraud. The opportunity for fraud was high, the motivation to commit it was moderate, and controls to prevent it needed reinforcing. Fraud vulnerability differed between farmers and suppliers. To reduce the fraud vulnerability, improved regulations and policies and stiffer penalties were strongly recommended.