Modelling a sustainable agri-food supply chain: a theoretic system construct

Stakeholders in an agri-food supply chain (AFSC) have responsibility to embrace sustainability as a yardstick to measure their business operations. System-based thinking for an AFSC is essential to harmonise interest of each parties while identifying and evaluating various critical success factors (CSFs) considering stakeholder's view in a sustainability perspective. This study examines relevant critical variables statistically tested for reliability and consistency for implementing system wide sustainability in AFSC. The total interpretative structural modelling (TISM) digraph is derived from the inter-relationship of the variables and the matrix multiplication applied to classification analysis (MICMAC) technique is used to priorities the CSFs based on the potency of their driving and dependence linkages. The developed model offers discussion, analysis and managerial implication in the light of stakeholder-oriented management within the overall paradigm of system sustainability. The study establishes that the government's role is the most important critical variable which conditions the whole system by offering guiding principles to all stakeholders for policy advancement and effective implementation. The study would help supply chain managers to avoid accumulating data that have little relevancy rather focus on the data built around critical variables only.