Global food security post COVID-19: Dearth or dwell in the developing world?

Today, global food systems are highly susceptible to food safety risks, economic shocks, price volatility, and natural disasters and pandemics, such as the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). This paper draws from research on food and nutritional security, food fraud and associated economic ecosystem, and the disruptions due to COVID-19 for socio-economic inequality globally. It is concluded that the safety risks have pushed enforcement of measures to reduce food supplies, adversely impacting food availability. Also, COVID-19 is likely to raise fleeting food security and nutritional concerns across the globe, resulting in rises in poverty and food fraud, limiting food supply and access. Accelerated investments intended to develop more inclusive, sustainable, and resilient food systems will help shrink the effect of the pandemic and, hence, offer a way to control the foreseen food security crisis and economic growth.

An ensemble machine learning approach for forecasting credit risk of agricultural SMEs' investments in agriculture 4.0 through supply chain finance.

Credit risk imposes itself as a significant barrier of agriculture 4.0 investments in the supply chain finance (SCF) especially for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises. Therefore, it is important for financial service providers (FSPs) to differentiate between low- and high-quality SMEs to accurately forecast the credit risk. This study proposes a novel hybrid ensemble machine learning approach to forecast the credit risk associated with SMEs' agriculture 4.0 investments in SCF. Two core approaches were used, i.e., Rotation Forest algorithm and Logit Boosting algorithm. Key variables influencing the credit risk of agriculture 4.0 investments in SMEs were identified and evaluated using data collected from 216 agricultural SMEs, 195 Leading Enterprises and 104 FSPs operating in African agriculture sector. Besides the classical measures of credit risk assessment without involving SCF, the findings indicate that current ratio, financial leverage, profit margin on sales and growth rate of the agricultural SME are the upmost important variables that SCF actors need to focus on, in order to accurately and optimistically forecast and alleviate credit risk. The output of our study provides useful guidelines for SMEs, as it highlights the conditions under which they would be seen as creditworthy by FSPs. On the other hand, this study encourages the wide application of SCF in financing agriculture 4.0 investments. Due to the model's performance, credit risk forecasting accuracy is improved, which results in future savings and credit risk mitigation in agriculture 4.0 investments of SMEs in SCF.

Artificial intelligence-driven innovation for enhancing supply chain resilience and performance under the effect of supply chain dynamism: an empirical investigation.

Supply chain resilience (SCRes) and performance have become increasingly important in the wake of the recent supply chain disruptions caused by subsequent pandemics and crisis. Besides, the context of digitalization, integration, and globalization of the supply chain has raised an increasing awareness of advanced information processing techniques such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) in building SCRes and improving supply chain performance (SCP). The present study investigates the direct and indirect effects of AI, SCRes, and SCP under a context of dynamism and uncertainty of the supply chain. In doing so, we have conceptualized the use of AI in the supply chain on the organizational information processing theory (OIPT). The developed framework was evaluated using a structural equation modeling (SEM) approach. Survey data was collected from 279 firms representing different sizes, operating in various sectors, and countries. Our findings suggest that while AI has a direct impact on SCP in the short-term, it is recommended to exploit its information processing capabilities to build SCRes for long-lasting SCP. This study is among the first to provide empirical evidence on maximizing the benefits of AI capabilities to generate sustained SCP. The study could be further extended using a longitudinal investigation to explore more facets of the phenomenon.

Infectious Waste Management Strategy during COVID-19 Pandemic in Africa: an Integrated Decision-Making Framework for Selecting Sustainable Technologies.

The emerging and underdeveloped countries in Africa face numerous difficulties managing infectious waste during the SARS-CoV-2 disease, known as the COVID-19 pandemic. Hence, the main aim of this paper is to help decision-makers in African countries to select the best available waste management strategy during the COVID-19 pandemic. The present research undertakes seamless assessment and prioritization of infectious solid waste (SW) and wastewater (WW) treatment technologies based on a criteria system involving four dimensions, i.e., environment-safety, technology, economics, and sociopolitics. A combined approach that integrates the results of life-cycle assessments and life-cycle costs (LCA-LCC), analytic hierarchy process (AHP), and VIKOR method in an interval-valued fuzzy (IVF) environment is proposed. The results reveal that combined incineration and chemical disinfection approach, and combined chlorination and ultraviolet irradiation are the most sustainable technologies for managing infectious SW and WW treatment in the present context. The proposed approach, alongside the findings of the study, constitutes a reference to devise urgent planning for contagious waste management in African countries as well as developing countries worldwide.