The Influence of Disruptive Technologies on the Resilient and Sustainable Performance of Agri-Food Supply Chains in the Face of COVID-19 Pandemic

Over the years, there has been an increase in the demand for agri-food products, specifically perishable
agricultural products such as fresh produce, dairy products, meats, fruits and vegetables, mostly in the
developed countries due to the populations' understanding on the nutritional requirements of such
products to their health and wellbeing (Stone and Rahimifard, 2018). Given that the global population is
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expected to increase to about 9.7billion by 2050 and 11.2billion by 2100, it is predicted that there would
be more demand for agri-foods within the range of 59%-98% (Kumar et al., 2020; Schmitz et al., 2017).
In this vein, national economies consider it an ideal way to secure agri-food globally by establishing
global supply networks, since globalisation has heightened cross-border trade deals (Cappelli and Cini,
2020). However, this has escalated the concerns for food quality, safety, affordability, security,
traceability and other sustainability issues in the food supply chain (Tsolakis et al., 2014).
Unfortunately, food supply chain is highly volatile due to several disruptions caused by man-made or
natural adversities including epidemics (Zhao et al., 2020). The sudden rise of COVID-19 pandemic has
exposed the vulnerability of the agri-food supply networks in most countries (Farrell et al., 2020). The
impact of this pandemic on the demand, supply and logistics aspects of agri-food is huge as uncertainty
sets in owing to the lockdowns and closure of cross-borders to stop the spread of the infectious virus
(Cappelli and Cini, 2020). Additionally, this pandemic has made more critical the concerns for food
security, safety, affordability and quality due to labour shortages, decreased production, increased
demand but reduced supply, food shortages and wastages (Hobbs, 2020; Ivanov and Dolgui, 2020).
Thus, there is an urgent need to look into the performance of agri-food supply chains in the midst of the
outbreak of pandemics and suggest ways to address the challenges.
In recent times, emerging digital technologies such as Blockchain, Big Data Analytics, Internet of Things
and Artificial Intelligence, are gradually adopted in the agri-food supply chain to enhance its performance
(Renda, 2019; Tian, 2016). Given that this innovation is still widely underused in the agri-food industry
(Lezoche et al., 2020), it would be worthwhile to investigate their impacts on agri-food supply chains
performance in dealing with the epidemics' disruptions. The key focus of this study is the United Kingdom
(UK), given its population's increased demand for agri-food products. It is unfortunate that the UK does
not produce certain agri-food products especially during the winter season (BBC, 2020). As a result, most
of the perishable goods are imported from European countries (NFU, 2018). With the on-going lockdowns
and cross-border closures due to COVID-19 pandemic and its new variant, UK might experience food
security, quality, safety and traceability issues in its agri-food industry both now and in the future.