Sustainability Fruit Supply Chain Design in the Context of Decentralized Smallholders: Modelling Framework and Sensitivity Analysis

Abstract This paper aims to examine the sustainability of smallholders’ citrus supply chain characterized by low coordination and the need to reinforce producers’ welfare, through optimization-based decision support method in the field where logistics specialization and global sustainability are required by agricultural producers. More specifically, a mixed-objective and multi-objective linear programming model is developed to achieve a sustainable balance: at the economic level, to reduce the logistics costs associated with the production chain as well as to reduce the environmental impacts in the form of carbon dioxide emissions generated during transport, while at the social level, integration through job creation into a three-echelons fruit supply chain including producers, intermediaries and retailers. The model is applied to four scenarios, whose analyses determine the importance of supply chain costs that cannot be neglected but which lead to an optimum that also reduces environmental burden and increases social welfare. In conclusion, the integration of opposing approaches represented by this model enables the improvement of the performance of the supply chain studied.