Reis Tiago N P Dos, Ribeiro Vivian, Garrett Rachael D, Kuemmerle Tobias, Rufin Philippe, Guidotti Vinicius, Amaral Pedro C, Meyfroidt Patrick
Earth and Life Institute, UCLouvain, Place Louis Pasteur, 3, bte L4.03.08, 1348 - Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
Instituto de Manejo e Certificação Florestal e Agrícola - IMAFLORA, Piracicaba, São Paulo 13426-420, Brazil.
Glob Environ Change. 2023 Jan;78:102633. doi: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2022.102633.
The global trade of agricultural commodities has profound social-ecological impacts, from potentially increasing food availability and agricultural efficiency, to displacing local communities, and to incentivizing environmental destruction. Supply chain stickiness, understood as the stability in trading relationships between supply chain actors, moderates the impacts of agricultural commodity production and the possibilities for supply-chain interventions. However, what factors determine stickiness, that is, how and why farmers, traders, food processors, and consumer countries, develop and maintain trading relationships with specific producing regions, remains unclear. Here, we use data on the Brazilian soy supply chain, a mixed methods approach based on extensive actor-based fieldwork, and an explanatory regression model, to identify and explore the factors that influence stickiness between places of production and supply chain actors. We find four groups of factors to be important: economic incentives, institutional enablers and constraints, social and power dimensions, and biophysical and technological conditions. Among the factors we explore, surplus capacity in soy processing infrastructure, (i.e., crushing and storage facilities) is important in increasing stickiness, as is export-oriented production. Conversely, volatility in market demand expressed by farm-gate soy prices and lower land-tenure security are key factors reducing stickiness. Importantly, we uncover heterogeneity and context-specificity in the factors determining stickiness, suggesting tailored supply-chain interventions are beneficial. Understanding supply chain stickiness does not, in itself, provide silver-bullet solutions to stopping deforestation, but it is a crucial prerequisite to understanding the relationships between supply chain actors and producing regions, identifying entry points for supply chain sustainability interventions, assessing the effectiveness of such interventions, forecasting the restructuring of trade flows, and considering sourcing patterns of supply chain actors in territorial planning.
农产品的全球贸易具有深远的社会生态影响，从可能增加粮食供应和农业效率，到取代当地社区，再到刺激环境破坏。供应链粘性被理解为供应链参与者之间贸易关系的稳定性，它缓和了农产品生产的影响以及供应链干预的可能性。然而，哪些因素决定了粘性，也就是说，农民、贸易商、食品加工商和消费国如何以及为何与特定生产地区建立并维持贸易关系，仍不明确。在此，我们利用巴西大豆供应链的数据、基于广泛的行为主体实地调查的混合方法以及一个解释性回归模型，来识别和探究影响生产地与供应链参与者之间粘性的因素。我们发现有四类因素很重要：经济激励、制度促进因素和制约因素、社会和权力维度以及生物物理和技术条件。在我们探究的因素中，大豆加工基础设施（即压榨和储存设施）的过剩产能在增加粘性方面很重要，以出口为导向的生产也是如此。相反，农场门口大豆价格所体现的市场需求波动以及较低的土地保有权保障是降低粘性的关键因素。重要的是，我们发现决定粘性的因素存在异质性和特定情境性，这表明量身定制的供应链干预措施是有益的。理解供应链粘性本身并不能提供阻止森林砍伐的万灵药式解决方案，但它是理解供应链参与者与生产地区之间关系、确定供应链可持续性干预的切入点、评估此类干预措施的有效性、预测贸易流重组以及在区域规划中考虑供应链参与者采购模式的关键前提条件。
