An application of the discrete event simulation for efficient crop production supply chain redesign

Given the new challenges confronting agricultural sector, innovative (alternative) production policies need to be devise and design at the farm level. Due to its involved high cost, re-configuring experiments are not easy and circumspect to conduct at this level, a beforehand modelling is required for a scrupulous evaluation of multiple impacts of any eventual alternative re-conguration. In this sense, focused on crop production supply chain encountered at a typical French agricultural cooperative, this study investigates an alternative storage policy based-on the pooling of growers and cooperative resources and efforts during the harvest season. By raising awarenesses on deterministic and stochastic components, a discrete event simulation modellings of the both current and alternative crop supply chain are presented and confronted for an efficient crop streaming from growing fields to long-term storage facilities.