Is it possible to quantify the current resilience level of an agri-food system? A review of the literature

Abstract

Nowadays being resilient is a requirement of all companies and more in general supply chains, as a consequence of the frequent disruptions which repeatedly affect systems and challenge markets from different sides. But how to state whether a company and its related supply chain are resilient or not? To address the present issue, a literature review was carried out on documents proposing quantitative tools or metrics for quantifying the resilience level of an agri-food supply chain, which is a specific field subjected to several threats and accordingly deserving attention. Due to the limited number of documents retrieved (i.e., 26 articles), stressing the gap to be filled in literature, mainly bibliometric analyses were performed on the sample, but contents were also deepened, resuming the different tools available at present. Results reflect the call for the development of models aiming at assessing the resilience of these systems before disruptions and non-controlled events occur; moreover, the industrial level turned out to be neglected, given the fact that all the studies deal with the farm stage (and in general agricultural activities).