Cheng WANG

School of Logistics, Chengdu University of Information Technology, Chengdu 610103, China

Abstract With the establishment of a well-off society in an all-round way, Chinese residents have put forward higher requirements for the quality and safety of fresh agricultural products.In recent years, domestic and foreign academic circles have also paid more and more attention to the risk of fresh agricultural product supply chain.This article collects and sorts out the research findings of domestic and foreign scholars on the risk assessment of fresh agricultural product supply chain in recent years, and summarizes and discusses from three aspects: supply chain risk factors, risk assessment indicator selection, and risk assessment methods.It is intended to provide a reference for future new research ideas and research perspectives.

Key words Fresh agricultural products, Supply chain risk, Risk factors, Risk assessment

1 Introduction

With the establishment of a well-off society in an all-round way, the living standards of Chinese residents are improving day by day, which puts forward higher requirements for the quality and safety of fresh agricultural products in daily life.Fresh agricultural products have complex characteristics such as perishability, seasonality, and difficulty in storage, as well as the price fluctuations and unbalanced supply and demand of the agricultural product market itself, resulting in the fragility and risk of the operation of the fresh agricultural product supply chain.In view of these, in recent years, more and more experts and scholars have carried out research on the risk assessment of the supply chain of fresh agricultural products, but the research work on the risk assessment of the supply chain of the specific category of fresh agricultural products has been carried out relatively late, and the results are relatively scattered.By searching and sorting out relevant literature, we studied the current research status of risk assessment of fresh agricultural product supply chain, hoping to provide a reference for new research ideas and research angles in the future.

2 Literature review

We first sorted out the content and perspective of the supply chain risk research review of fresh agricultural products with reference to Liu Yongshengetal.[1]and Cheng Zitaoetal.[2]on the risk review research.Then, we summarized and discussed from three aspects: supply chain risk factors, selection of risk assessment indicators, and risk assessment methods.

(i)Overview of risk factor research.Hornibrooketal.[3]believed that the risk of fresh beef supply chain in the United Kingdom mainly comes from environmental uncertainty and information asymmetry, which in turn affect the contractual relationship between supply chain members and lead to risk.Kramer[4]defined the supply chain quality and safety risks of fresh fruits and vegetables as the following four types: biological risks; chemical risks; physical risks risk; microbial risk.Siegeletal.[5]believed that the supply chain of agricultural products is derived from climate change, price fluctuation, quality and safety.Willersinnetal[6].believed that wholesalers, processors and retailers are the key to causing quantitative and quality risks in the Swiss potato supply chain.Zurek[7]stated that different participants in the supply chain system face different types of risks, such as supply chain risk, food safety risk, reputation risk and regulatory risk.

Xu Juanetal.[8]based on the analysis of emergencies in fresh agricultural products, concluded that the risk sources of emergencies are natural risk, market risk and production risk.Li Ya’nanetal.[9]pointed out that the supply chain risks of fresh agricultural products come from technical risk, demand risk, management risk, information risk and other risks.Qin Ying[10]focused on the risk factors of cold chain logistics in the supply chain of fresh agricultural products, and put forward relevant risk avoidance suggestions.Zhou Jixiangetal.[11]conducted an in-depth discussion on the procurement risk in the supply chain of fresh agricultural products, indicating the importance of demand risk to the entire supply chain.Ma Ming[12]analyzed the risk factors affecting the supply chain of fresh agricultural products under the "agricultural-supermarket docking" mode and the "Internet+" mode.Xue Qin[13]discussed the cooperation risk of supply chain entities to the original fresh agricultural product supply chain risk factors.

The sources of risk were judged intuitively in the early stage, and most of the risks were classified into two aspects: internal risk and external risk, but the research was rather simple and not deep enough.With the deepening of research, scholars more targeted add cold chain logistics risks, information risks, market fluctuation risks and other risk factors to discuss.However, there are few studies on the supply chain risk of specific types of fresh agricultural products and the supply chain of agricultural products in specific regions.

(ii)Overview of research on indicator selection.Deepetal.[14]used the scenario planning method to determine the risk indicators of the food supply chain through the steps of defining the risk of future stability, establishing a risk structure tree, and generating demand, and divided the risk indicators into three.Sachinetal.[15]used the Decision-making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory(DEMATEL)method to evaluate the green supply chain product recycling risk, government risk, technical risk, and other eight risks, and concluded that operational risk and supply risk have the greatest impact.Rezaetal.[16]selected 7 main indicators and 44 secondary indicators such as key supplier failure, demand fluctuation, policy risk, and IT security for sustainable supply chain risk assessment.Rishabhetal.[17]used the multi-attribute decision-making technique(VIKOR)to rank risk factors according to the judgment criteria in India on the spot, and selected technical risks, natural disasters, communication failures, storage facilities Insufficient and other risk indicators.

Lang Jifang[18]took the fresh vegetable supply chain as the research object, and identified product risk, organizational risk, network risk and environmental risk for 4 first-level indicators, 10 second-level indicators and 29 third-level indicators.Zhao Zicheng[19]used supply chain links such as the selection of production factors, processing, transportation and distribution, and market sales as the criterion layer and 24 sub-criteria layers as risk identification indicators.Zhang Li[20]used the SCOR model and literature statistics to identify risk factors in the supply chain of fresh agricultural products, and established 7 second-level based on environment, cooperation, information, demand, logistics, production, and supply risks.Li Yueetal.[21]based on the specific research in Shandong Province, constructed the source risk of planting, external environmental, transportation, organizational management and benefit risk.Wang Xuewei[22]took Gansu’s characteristic industry plateau summer vegetables, and determined 25 risk factors, and carried out with 7 secondary indicators of logistics, supply, processing, cooperation, information, demand and environment.

To sum up, domestic scholars tend to select risk indicators from the perspective of the overall agricultural product supply chain, but the selected indicators are often too broad and not targeted.Summarizing the research of domestic and foreign scholars, although some research results have been achieved, the risk indicators of certain types of specific agricultural products, specific regions and specific enterprises, there are few studies on summer vegetables, the results are lack of pertinence, and the method of indicator selection needs to be further scientific and reasonable.

(iii)Overview of risk assessment methods.Amesederetal.[23]analyzed four different agri-food supply chains of meat, grains, olive oil, fresh vegetables and fruits, conducted in-depth interviews using exploratory methods and qualitative techniques, and assessed market risks as the most influential risk.Zubairetal.[24]used the risk breakdown structure method to divide supply chain risks into five major risks, and calculated from the risk matrix, 16 are high risk, 8 are medium risk, and 4 are low risk.Ulfahetal.[25]used the supply chain operation reference model and the House of Risk method to identify supply chain risks, and proposed 15 risk mitigation actions based on the results.Murtonoetal.[26]used the rapid agricultural supply chain risk assessment method to conduct risk analysis, and rated the risk severity and probability, it shows that farmers are the level facing the greatest risk.Santeramoetal.[27]using semi-quantitative scoring systems, decision trees and risk matrix methods, and using risk ranking software to identify and evaluate agricultural supply chain risks.

Wang Xuefengetal.[28]used the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method to evaluate the supply chain risk of green agricultural products, and the results showed that the risk level of the supply chain is medium.Yan Boetal.[29]employed three layers of IoT perception layer, network layer, and application layer to identify agricultural product supply chain risks, and used the OWA operator to evaluate and rank risk factors.Li Xiyuan[30]applied the method of system dynamics to conduct a simulation analysis of the supply chain demand risk of fresh agricultural products.Jia Jiangmingetal.[31]analyzed the characteristics of risk networks by using social network analysis(SNA), explored the internal mechanism of risk formation, and assessed the risk of fresh agricultural product supply chain.Chen Zikang[32]studied the cold chain logistics of agricultural products in Shandong Province, and constructed a system dynamics model, the results show that the environmental risk has always been in a high-risk state.

To sum up, foreign scholars tend to use fault tree analysis(FTA), event tree analysis(ETA), fuzzy matrix, and field research in the use of risk assessment methods, while domestic scholars tend to using fuzzy matrix operations based on expert scoring.However, it is necessary to further study what kind of quantitative analysis method should be combined with what kind of qualitative analysis method, and what type of supply chain risk assessment should be applied to.

3 Insufficient existing research

(i)Risk factors in the supply chain of fresh agricultural products are not scientific and complete.In judging the risk factors of fresh agricultural products supply chain, most scholars often refer to the results of predecessors, fail to combine the unique characteristics of fresh agricultural products, and fail to reflect the characteristics of fresh agricultural product supply chains of specific types or regions.

(ii)The selection of risk indicators lacks objectivity.The evaluation index system is an important premise for whether the risk assessment result is scientific and objective.Most scholars often only refer to the frequency of occurrence in the literature in the selection of indicators, and fail to conduct in-depth research on the applicability of the indicators to the risk system; and the selection of indicators relies more on subjective experience judgments, the use of scientific methods to select less.

(iii)The risk assessment method of fresh agricultural product supply chain needs to be further improved.The methods of risk assessment of fresh agricultural product supply chain mostly follow the method of risk assessment of agricultural product supply chain.Although the two have great commonalities to a certain extent, they inevitably ignore the characteristics of fresh agricultural products and the application process.

(iv)There are few studies on the risk assessment of fresh agricultural product supply chain.There are still few studies on fresh agricultural product supply chain risks that have been highly valued in recent years.In particular, there is very little research on specific types of fresh products, a specific region, and a specific company.

4 Research prospects

(i)Evaluation needs to be more systematic and scientific.Risk assessment is not simply to analyze risk factors, select indicators, and obtain results.Every link in the research process needs to be discussed in depth, so that the research is interlinked and progressive.For example, in a fresh agricultural product supply chain, it is necessary to take full consideration of what are the risk factors, which indicators are suitable for the risk assessment of the supply chain, and which method is more reasonable,etc.

(ii)Applicability of risk assessment methods.In risk assessment research, it is necessary to consider the applicability of the application of methods and models, the objectivity of risk results, and the rationality of the combination of different methods.It highlights new methods and models derived from new research perspectives, and it also enriches theoretical research in this field.

(iii)Focusing on more specific assessment.Most of the current risk assessments are based on the supply chain of fresh agricultural products in a broad sense, and the research results lack pertinence and practicality.Fresh agricultural products and fresh agricultural products of specific enterprises make the risk assessment of fresh agricultural products supply chain more practical.

(iv)Keeping pace with the times.With the development of the times, the research on the supply chain risks of fresh agricultural products is not limited to quality and safety risks, but should be more integrated with national or regional development strategies, such as the "the Belt and Road Initiative" strategy, "Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle",etc.