Analysis of Technological Gaps for Agricultural Chains Through the Analytical Hierarchical Process – AHP

Abstract

The technological advances experienced by some countries can revolutionary change the productivity and competitiveness of a wide range of economic sectors due to the opening of possibilities of new ways of doing things better; however, the state of advancement of technology in the respective sectors and countries must first be determined. The aim of the study was to identify the technological gaps in the different productive links of the banana production chain in Colombia, in comparison with different leading countries in the world, to establish the best practices in each of these links. The study was quantitative in nature and the Hierarchical Analytical Process - AHP was used as a multi-criteria tool for information processing and analysis. The study population corresponded to the countries with a banana production chain, and the sample corresponded to the 13 countries with the highest volume of production. Among the multiple existing comparison criteria, the following were selected for analysis: basic research, production volume, exported value, exported quantity and unit value of exports. As a result, it was obtained that Nigeria presents the greatest advances and conditions in the productive chain analyzed according to the established criteria. Likewise, a methodology was established that can be extrapolated to be used in the evaluation of national and international agricultural production chains within the framework of technological gaps.