Transforming agricultural supply-chain through postharvest engineering and appropriate technology

Agricultural supply-chain in developing countries has been recognized to have critical complications, e.g., seasonal supply-demand complexity, high emission factor, economic inequality, social conflicts, etc. Thus, it requires a significant transformation to solve its latent problems. This study suggests the transformation by conducting a postharvest engineering by the application of appropriate technology. As an ex-farm strategy, postharvest engineering offers less interventions to any existing process taken by least developing societal groups. In parallel, appropriate technology puts an emphasis on the sustainability of a technological solution by using indigenous knowledge as its basis. Their combination will then transform the whole supply-chain in terms of four different perspectives. Technically, supply-chain complexity requires an interconnected calculation of supply-demand network. Besides, economic value added needs to be redistributed throughout the chain. Next, applying an appropriate technology in conducting postharvest processing will change the life-cycle assessment of a commodity being treated. Then, involved parties in the chain require a renewed partnership to intermediate different interests. In short, this study proposes a notion on a set of comprehensive solutions from different views to solve problematic issues within any agricultural supply-chain in many developing countries.