A system dynamics model to improving sustainable performance of the citrus farmers in Jordan Valley

Food supply chain is gaining significant importance among international researchers and practitioners. However, food loss and waste is a global issue that significantly impacts global food security and requires more attention from all parties to find solutions to eliminate their causes. Although the amount of food loss and waste is much higher in developed countries, this paper enriches the current literature by providing insights from developing countries. The study highlighted the challenges and obstacles which hinder the capability of citrus farmers and other stakeholders to reduce food loss and waste and improve their profit in one of the Mediterranean countries. This paper aims to identify the best practices for improving the sustainable performance of citrus supply chains. For this purpose, the system dynamics approach has been used to build and simulate scenarios to improve the environmental performance of citrus production in Jordan and to observe the reflections of that on both the economic and social dimensions. Five scenarios were proposed and discussed from the sustainability perspective. The results from all scenarios showed significant improvement in 'farmers' profit by 22.4%, 15.6%, 8.6%, 30.0%, and 23.2% when hiring more workers (S1), motivating workers (S2), re-usage of crates (S3), the combination of S1 and S3 (S4), and the combination of S2 and S4 (S5), respectively. Moreover, the self-sufficiency index has been improved by 18.9% in S1, S2, S4, and S5.

The study suggests that there is a significant relationship between the number of farmworkers, pre-harvesting loss, and citrus consumption per capita. The novelty of this research lies within its quest to expand the knowledge regarding the dynamic factors influencing the sustainability of citrus supply chains in developing countries and observe the interactions between the pillars of sustainability.