A Global Food Supply Chain for Two Agricultural Products: A Case Study from an Economic Point of View
摘要
Currently, some food products are produced in specific regions that must be distributed to other regions to fulfill the demand on time, highlighting the role of international trading, such as import and export. The distribution planning of these products introduced the global food supply chain (GFSC) problem that involves complex economic and agricultural constraints. In this paper, an integrated Linear Programming (LP) model is developed for the combined rice and wheat supply chain. The model aims to optimize the flow of rice and wheat within the trading partners for these products globally. The constraints are also imposed on production, exports, imports, storage, budget, and flow capacity. Depending on the current import trend, assumptions are made about the purchasing ability of the countries with a focus on imports, including their Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Thus, the paper also analyses the proposed GFSC from an economic point of view. A real-world case study is conducted to show the model’s applicability in most countries worldwide. The data were collected from different publicly available sources and prepared as input to the model. The developed LP model was solved using the CPLEX solver of GAMS software. The results are analyzed and compared to the current distribution scenario. The analyses uncover interesting insights into the global supply chain of rice and wheat and the potential of the countries in economic growth or decline.