Supply chain models for small agricultural enterprises

Small agricultural production enterprises have been under immense economic pressures for many years. It is our belief that a favorable impact can be made on small farm enterprises through the development and implementation of models that address their basic needs and open new markets and production initiatives. In this paper, we develop models for supply chain issues facing small farmers, solve them, and suggest their uses and future considerations. In particular, we consider B2C and B2B aspects of an agricultural supply chain model. The B2C aspect is considered in direct farmer to consumer sales in retail markets, while the B2B aspect is represented by transactions through agricultural cooperatives. We evaluate key strategic decisions such as whether to form cooperative agreements with other farmers and if so, how large to make the cooperative, and the production quantities at which farmers would like to sell directly to customers with or without using the cooperative.

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