Research Proposal: Challenges in Agricultural Supply Chain Management

This research proposal investigates the complexities of the agricultural supply chain, from farming to retail, focusing on multi-mode decision-making strategies. It aims to understand the agro-ecosystem and the relationship between the supply chain and decision-making processes, while also identifying factors leading to decision failures such as timing, priority, and follow-up. The study seeks to explore external influences like fertilizer use and political factors, and suggests measures to better support farmers. The proposal outlines the research questions, hypothesis, literature review, research design, data collection methods, and ethical considerations. The study will utilize an analytical research design and secondary data sources to analyze the challenges and propose solutions for a more efficient agricultural supply chain. The research will also address the gap in the literature regarding the lack of effective collaboration between stakeholders and farmers. A Gantt chart outlines the timeline for the research activities, from topic selection to final submission.

Running Head: RESEARCH PROPOSAL
Research Proposal
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Abstract
The aim of this research proposal is draw attention towards the issue that the agricultural
supply chain faces throughout the entire process starting with the farming, supply,
distribution and reaching the end users via the retailers. The study will provide a sound
understanding of the agro- ecosystem and the relation of agricultural supply chain with
multi –mode decision making after being aware of the challenges that are deeply
associated with the supply chain process in the agricultural field. It is aimed at finding out
the factors that lead to the decision failures in the agricultural field such as decision
timing, decision priority and decision follow –up. It is designed to be familiar with other
influencing factors such as inefficient use of fertilizer, political parties to the farm
households and others. It will also identify measures which could be adapted to support
the farmers more effectively.

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Table of Contents
Background of the Study.........................................................................................................3
Research aims and objectives..................................................................................................4
Research Questions..................................................................................................................4
Research Hypothesis................................................................................................................5
Literature Review....................................................................................................................5
Exploration of the key terms....................................................................................................6
Research Design......................................................................................................................6
Data collection method............................................................................................................6
Data analysis technique...........................................................................................................7
Research ethical consideration................................................................................................7
Limitation of the study.............................................................................................................7
Reference.........................................................................................................................................9

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Background of the Study
The Agricultural industry is one of the most important fields for the survival. The food
consumed by humans is related to a huge cycle of operations. There has been many researches
regarding the challenges the supply chain of agricultural management faces through the process.
There are many issues such as delivery of commodities, need of temporary workers, increased
production needs and many others (Brandenburg et al. 2014). First of all, when the commodities
are delivered to the warehouses by various means of transportations such as by truck or train. In
most of the cases, the trucks are used in order to deliver the food materials to the concerned
warehouses. Although the entire process appears to be simple, it is actually not. The trucks do
face a goof range of issues at various sites. They are made to stand in queues for efficiency
testing in a short span of time.
A less efficient site loses their abilities to handle an increased workload. However, a
weak transport system can cause loss to the delivery of commodities. The next issue is with the
need of temporary workers. Some temporary workers are needed in order to support the
increased work pressure during the peak harvest times (Dubey, Gunasekaran and Ali 2015). The
new workers to this industry Theses workers find out the safety and training issues in the field
which incurs extra costs. Nowadays, although huge amount is spent on the trainings to ensure
safety, the new workers might face challenges in creating a safe working environment. The
increased production needs pose another crucial problem that clearly sets the need to have a
multi –mode decision making. Since with the increase of population, the demand for foods has
also increased, there is no other option than producing more (Lam et al 2015). However, the
expectation does not always meet the reality. The farmers face many problems while producing

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such as climate change which affects the easy farming of many crops. Lack of sufficient water,
lack of effective coordination with the stakeholders are among the biggest problems they face.
Hence, due to such issues in the agricultural supply chain, a proper multi –mode decision
making is needed to address the problems. An effective decision making requires the strategic
thinkers to construct and show ways to implement it. The multi –mode decision making is an
integral part of the agricultural supply chain (Lian, Yen and Wang 2014). The supply chain,
when not conducted properly, might leave impact on the productivity and initiate crisis.
Research aims and objectives
The aim of the study is to understand the issues in the agricultural supply chain and the
importance of multi –mode decision making strategies to resolve the issues.
The research objectives are:
1. To have a sound understanding of the agro- ecosystem and the relation of agricultural
supply chain with multi –mode decision making after being aware of the challenges that
are deeply associated with the supply chain process in the agricultural field.
2. To find out the factors that lead to the decision failures in the agricultural field such as
decision timing, decision priority and decision follow –up.
3. To be familiar with other influencing factors such as inefficient use of fertilizer, political
parties to the farm households and others.
4. To identify measures which could be adapted to support the farmers more effectively.
Research Questions
RQ1. What is the role of multi –mode decision making in reducing the challenges faced by the
agricultural supply chain?

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RQ2. How is multi –mode decision making is related to the supply chain?
RQ 3. How lack of an effective collaboration between stakeholders and farmers?
Research Hypothesis
H0: The proper implementation and maintenance of multi – mode decision making will reduce
the challenges of agricultural supply chain
H1: The proper implementation and maintenance of multi –mode decision making will not
reduce the challenges of agricultural supply chain
Literature Review
Lam et al. (2015) opines that since, the agricultural supply chain has an impact f
environmental behaviours , and of farmers’ co-operation , it is actually vulnerable to a number of
threats. On the other hand, Minot and Sawyer (2016), pose the fact that multi-mode decision
making is an essential part of the agricultural supply chain, which if not conducted appropriately,
will affect the productivity. Strategies have failed in past such as the “Contract Farming”. As
found from the article of Jones et al. (2017), an increased workload can affect the work
efficiency until it is properly managed. Lian, Yen and Wang (2014) supports that the follow up
of the implementation of plan is the most important.
According to the views of Jones et al. (2017). The agricultural science is an important
field that studies the challenging behavior of the entire agricultural system. There must be a
coordination between the agro-ecosystem and scientific behavior. The scientific modeling of an
agricultural ecosystem has become a platform for increasing interests for various groups in the
public and private institutions. However, there has been many researches regarding the main
topic that is the agricultural supply chain and the multi –mode decision making as an efficient

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enhancer of the productivity and others, there is still one gap. The gap which has not been
covered. After reviewing most of the literatures, the gap has been found that is related to the
lack of an effective collaboration between stakeholders and farmers.
The problems in this part has been continuing since years, but there has been no such
researches which raises voice against to the discrepancy occurring between the farmers and the
stakeholders. So many strategies were being made in different regions across the globe.
However, those strategies had lacked an appropriate implementation.
Exploration of the key terms
Key terms - Agricultural systems, factors affecting decision- making, multi –mode, supply
chain
Research Design
There are three types of research designs irrespective of the type, whether it is descriptive
or analytical. Among all the types, the analytical research design helps to evaluate the topic in a
descriptive manner. The exploratory research design supports to understand the concept of the
primary stage of research whereas the explanatory research design helps to grow a relationship
between the two variables. Hence, for this particular research, the analytical research design will
be used in order to gain in-depth knowledge of the existing concepts and theories regarding the
topic. The other two research designs will be rejected for sure.
Data collection method
The study will be based on the collection of data from the secondary sources. The
secondary sources will be reliable and full of relevant statistical as well as theoretical data to

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justify the research questions of the study. All kinds of available data will be utilized whether in
a printed form or in the online platform. Those data will be accepted the most which would be
based on practical surveys conducted on the important people related to the topic.
Data analysis technique
The data collected from the secondary sources will be converted into graphs and
percentages inn order to present a pictorial representation. After that they will be compared and
contrasted to get a better understanding of the topic.
Research ethical consideration
During the entire research, strict ethical guidelines will be followed. For carrying out the
secondary research, plagiarism will be highly avoided and there will be proper referencing and
citations. Hence, any kinds of approach will not be taken to violate the regulations and norms of
the ethical guidelines.
Limitation of the study
It is true that there has to be a number of limitations of a research study irrespective of the
efforts put in the planning of the research. First of all, time will always pose as a limitation in all
the researches. The availability of resources comes as another major issue. There can also be
instances where few of the resources might be inaccessible. However, the research will be
planned in a way that would be helpful to complete the research in the right way.
Activities 1st to
3rd
Week
4th to
10th
week
11th to
13th
Week
14th to
17th
Week
18th to
21st
Week
22nd
to 23rd
Week
24th
Week

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Selection of the topic 
Data collection from
secondary sources
 
Creating layout 
Literature review   
Analysis and
interpretation of
collected data
  
Findings of the data  
Conclusion of the study 
Formation of draft  
Submission of final
work

Fig: Gantt Chart
(Source: As created by the author)

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Reference
Brandenburg, M., Govindan, K., Sarkis, J. and Seuring, S., 2014. Quantitative models for
sustainable supply chain management: Developments and directions. European journal of
operational research, 233(2), pp.299-312.
Dubey, R., Gunasekaran, A. and Ali, S.S., 2015. Exploring the relationship between leadership,
operational practices, institutional pressures and environmental performance: A framework for
green supply chain. International Journal of Production Economics, 160, pp.120-132.
Jones, J.W., Antle, J.M., Basso, B., Boote, K.J., Conant, R.T., Foster, I., Godfray, H.C.J.,
Herrero, M., Howitt, R.E., Janssen, S. and Keating, B.A., 2017. Brief history of agricultural
systems modeling. Agricultural systems, 155, pp.240-254.
Jones, J.W., Antle, J.M., Basso, B., Boote, K.J., Conant, R.T., Foster, I., Godfray, H.C.J.,
Herrero, M., Howitt, R.E., Janssen, S. and Keating, B.A., 2017. Toward a new generation of
agricultural system data, models, and knowledge products: State of agricultural systems
science. Agricultural systems, 155, pp.269-288.
Lam, C.P., Yang, A.Y., Driggs-Campbell, K., Bajcsy, R. and Sastry, S.S., 2015, September.
Improving human-in-the-loop decision making in multi-mode driver assistance systems using
hidden mode stochastic hybrid systems. In Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2015
IEEE/RSJ International Conference on (pp. 5776-5783). IEEE.

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Lian, J.W., Yen, D.C. and Wang, Y.T., 2014. An exploratory study to understand the critical
factors affecting the decision to adopt cloud computing in Taiwan hospital. International Journal
of Information Management, 34(1), pp.28-36.
Minot, N. and Sawyer, B., 2016. Contract farming in developing countries: Theory, practice, and
policy implications. Innovation for Inclusive Value Chain Development: Successes and
Challenges, International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, DC, pp.127-155.
Mylan, J., Geels, F.W., Gee, S., McMeekin, A. and Foster, C., 2015. Eco-innovation and retailers
in milk, beef and bread chains: enriching environmental supply chain management with insights
from innovation studies. Journal of Cleaner Production, 107, pp.20-30.
Notenbaert, A., Pfeifer, C., Silvestri, S. and Herrero, M., 2017. Targeting, out-scaling and
prioritising climate-smart interventions in agricultural systems: Lessons from applying a generic
framework to the livestock sector in sub-Saharan Africa. Agricultural systems, 151, pp.153-162.
Pressler, Y., Foster, E.J., Moore, J.C. and Cotrufo, M.F., 2017. Coupled biochar amendment and
limited irrigation strategies do not affect a degraded soil food web in a maize agroecosystem,
compared to the native grassland. Gcb Bioenergy, 9(8), pp.1344-1355.
Rueda, X., Garrett, R.D. and Lambin, E.F., 2017. Corporate investments in supply chain
sustainability: Selecting instruments in the agri-food industry. Journal of cleaner
production, 142, pp.2480-2492.