A Collaborative Model to Improve Farmers’ Skill Level by Investments in an Uncertain Context

Abstract

Some small farms are forced to waste a part of their harvests for not reaching the quality standards fixed by consumers. Meanwhile, modern retailers (MR) are interested in selling more quality products to increase their profits. MR could invest in a collaboration program so the small farmers could have access to better technologies and formation to increase the proportion of quality products. Unfortunately, the demand, the quantity of harvest, the proportion of harvest being of quality, and its increase with each investment are uncertain parameters. A fuzzy model considering these uncertainties is proposed to determine the investments that MR should made to maximize the profits of the supply chain in a collaboration context. A method to transform the fuzzy model into an equivalent crisp model and an interactive resolution method are applied.