Abstract

The modern-day food industries operate within a complex agri-food supply network, where food production has become efficient but is also susceptible to supply chain risks. The COVID-19 pandemic serves as evidence of this vulnerability. Examining the impact of changes in labor, capital, supply chain diversification, and upstream industries on U.S. food industry vulnerabilities is important for an efficient analysis of resource utilization in the agri-food supply chain management. The objective of this research is to investigate the influence of these factors, mainly focusing on the supply chain exposure measures such as impact of diversification and upstream dependencies on the vulnerability of agricultural industries to disruptions such as the COVID-19 pandemic. For this purpose, the study uses cross section panel data of nine agricultural industries across all States for the year 2018 and 2021. Advanced econometric techniques are applied to carry out the empirical analysis, including pooled OLS with robust standard errors and Fixed Effects Model. These methods allowed us to account for state differences, unobserved heterogeneity, multicollinearity, and heteroscedasticity issues. The key findings of this study concludes that Labor and Capital are significantly and positively related with the value added of the output. While SDI indicated an insignificant relationship with value added for our models before the pandemic in 2018, the relationship between value added and supply chain diversification was found to be significantly negative for our models in 2021, when the supply chain faced vulnerability. Additionally, the outcomes indicate an insignificant relationship between the exposed upstream links and the value added of the output. The study suggests that following the COVID-19 pandemic, a more diversified supply chain may introduce complexities and inefficiencies that could negatively affect the value added.

Advisor

Burnell, Jim

Department

Economics

Disciplines

Agribusiness | Operations and Supply Chain Management

Keywords

Senior IS, Supply Chain Management

Publication Date

2024

Degree Granted

Bachelor of Arts

Document Type

Senior Independent Study Thesis

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