A sustainable supply chain for organic, conventional agro-food products: The role of demand substitution, climate change and public health

In today's marketplace, conventional agricultural products are produced all around the world due to economic reasons. However, recent environmental challenges such as global warming and climate change has strongly been affected by the high volumes of chemical pesticides and fertilizers used to produce these products. Several published reports have indicated the negative effects of the chemicals used in conventional agriculture as well as the effect of climate change on human health. The aim of this study is to develop and analyze a multi-objective linear mathematical model for a sustainable supply chain with an agro-food deteriorating product. The product is produced by two different methods, both by organic and conventional means. In this way, we attempt to create a balance between the production and consumption of conventional and organic products in order to achieve three objectives: reducing costs, reducing environmental degradation, and increasing levels of consumer health. Partial backorder for each product, as well as conventional demand substitution by organic products, are taken into account. In order to assess the impact of supply chain operations on public health, we define a new function based on each product's production and consumption amounts as well as the amount of wastes. The developed model is solved by augmented ɛ-constraint method. Numerical results indicate the important role of supply chain's managers in the formation of sustainable health production and consumption patterns.