A conceptual framework for crop-based agri-food supply chain characterization under uncertainty

[EN] Crop-based Agri-food Supply Chains (AFSCs) are complex systems that face multiple sources of uncertainty that can cause a significant imbalance between supply and demand in terms of product varieties, quantities, qualities, customer requirements, times and prices, all of which greatly complicate their management. Poor management of these sources of uncertainty in these AFSCs can have negative impact on quality, safety, and sustainability by reducing the logistic efficiency and increasing the waste. Therefore, it becomes crucial to develop models in order to deal with the key sources of uncertainty. For this purpose, it is necessary to precisely understand and define the problem under study. Even, the characterisation process of this domains is also a difficult and time-consuming task, especially when the right directions and standards are not in place. In this chapter, a Conceptual Framework is proposed that systematically collects those aspects that are relevant for an adequate crop-based AFSC management under uncertainty. Authors of this publication acknowledge the contribution of the Project 691249, RUC-APS "Enhancing and implementing Knowledge based ICT solutions within high Risk and Uncertain Conditions for Agriculture Production Systems" (www.ruc-aps.eu), funded by the European Union under their funding scheme H2020-MSCA-RISE-2015 Alemany Díaz, MDM.; Esteso, A.; Ortiz Bas, Á.; Hernández Hormazabal, JE.; Fernández, A.; Garrido, A.; Martin, J... (2021). A conceptual framework for crop-based agri-food supply chain characterization under uncertainty. Studies in Systems, Decision and Control. 280:19-33. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51047-3_2 Taylor, D.H., Fearne, A.: Towards a framework for improvement in the management of demand in agri-food supply chains. Supply Chain Manage. 11, 379–384 (2006) Matopoulos, A., Vlachopoulou, M., Manthou, V., Manos, B.: A conceptual framework for supply chain collaboration: empirical evidence from the agri-food industry. Supply Chain Manage. 12, 177–186 (2007) Ahumada, O., Villalobos, J.R.: Application of planning models in the agri-food supply chain: a review. Eur. J. Oper. Res. 196, 1–20 (2009) Iakovou, E., Vlachos, D., Achillas, C., Anastasiadis, F.: A methodological framework for the design of green supply chains for the agrifood sector. Paper presented at the 2nd international conference on supply chains, Katerini, 5–7 Oct 2012 Manzini, R., Accorsi, R.: The new conceptual framework for food supply chain ass