Farm to Fork Supply chain

Shashank Singh

1. Research Question: Analysis of a farm to fork supply chain in terms of value addition and price escalation at the level of each new ownership in the chain and to work towards proposing a business model to weed out the inefficiencies of the current system.

1.1 Which commodities will I track in a food supply chain?

1.2 What are the various legislations governing the food supply chain in the area of my study?

1.3 What are the various stopovers in a farm to fork supply chain?

1.3.1 What are the various stopovers in the interstate movement of goods?
1.3.2 What are the various stopovers when production and consumption are at the same location (say within the same district)?

1.4 In 1.3.1 and 1.3.2, what is the value added by the new ownership at each stopover along with the costs and profits at that stage?

1.4.1 Is the price escalation at each stage consistent with the value addition at that stage?

1.4.1.1 If not, why? What then explains the price escalation at that stage?

1.5 To be able to draw a value chain for the commodity in question.

1.6 To be able to suggest an alternate business model to minimize the inefficiencies of the current system.

2 Falsifiable Hypothesis:
a. Lack of interoperable systems to link a product from farm to fork and lack of unique identifier might render it impossible to reach definite conclusions.
b. Parameters like differing regulations and practices at different places, varying resources and expertise, lack of specific product information might limit the scope of the study.

3 Research Method:
a. Primary and Secondary: I will investigate each stopover in the supply chain in terms of value addition, cost, profits and all other parameters that impact that and the successive stages of the supply chain through a firsthand interaction with the stakeholders at different stages.
I will also try and obtain the relevant statistics from organizations like Central Potato Research Institute to supplement the information obtained through primary research.
b. Qualitative and Quantitative: The quantitative analysis at every stage in the supply chain will include the cost of purchase, profit margins and percentage price escalation in terms of total escalation.
The qualitative analysis will include an analysis of whether the mathematical computation is consistent with the value added by the new ownership at each junction. If no, then what are the other factors which may provide a suitable explanation for the price escalation?
c. Past research on this topic: The bulk of the past research has been on how reforms like retail sector overhaul, improvement in real estate and cold chain infrastructure, more investment in food processing plants and third party logistics etc. can help build an efficient food supply chain.

4 Feasibility Constraint:
a. Time: I have to strive hard to collect all data in minimum possible time so that I have sufficient time in hand to do the analysis.
b. Resources:
Interviews: I will interview different stakeholders at each level of supply chain to gather the relevant statistics. I will also then interview experts in the field which might help me piece together a better analysis of this data.
Books: Operations and the Supply chain management for the 21st century by Kenneth Karel Boyer and Rohit Verma.
Published Articles:
i. Delivering Simultaneous Benefits To The Farmer And The Common Man: Time To
Unshackle The Agricultural Produce Distribution System, S. Raghunath, and D.Ashok, IIM Bangalore, June 2004.
ii. India’s Sleeping Giant: Food, Mckinsey Quarterly, 1997.
iii. Food Supply chain approaches: Exploring their role in rural development, Terry Marsden, Jo Banks and Gillian Bristow.

5 Evaluating Progress:
a. A plan of action with timelines: I plan to spend first week deciding and drafting a plan for the collection of statistics, spend the next 2 weeks in the field collecting data and do the analysis in the last part.
b. Risk Factors: The small timeline involved, limited number of good books on the subject might pose considerable risk.
c. Plan B: If I am unable to obtain the relevant statistics from the field, I will try and source my data from various statistical organizations and research done earlier and try and analyze them in a different perspective.