Xie Jingci is a Professor and Doctoral Supervisor of the School of Management in Shandong University and Director of the Institute of Logistics and Supply Chain Management. He is the Visiting Scholar of the Department of System Innovation at the University of Tokyo and the Department of Logistics and Maritime Studies at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Professor Xie is a doctor in Maritime Logistics Science (Engineering) and minored in International Food Circulation at Kobe University, postdoctoral in Applied Economics at Shandong University and has been selected for the Shandong University Young Scholar’s Future Plan Cultivation Project. Also, he has presided over more than ten projects such as projects of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Project Sponsored by the Scientific Research Foundation for the Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars, the Ministry of Education of PRC, projects of the Humanities and Social Science Foundation of the Ministry of Education, Projects Commissioned by the Ministry of Commerce, projects of China Postdoctoral Foundation, projects of Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation and Shandong Social Science Planning. In recent years, Professor Xie has published nearly 60 papers (SSCI, SCI, CSSCI and CSCD) in the core journals at home and abroad, published three monographs, and edited numerous textbooks. He is also the Director of the T-LOG/EASTS, SESC Maritime & Air Economics Systems Engineering Technical Committee of the Systems Engineering Society of China and Multimodal Transportation Sub-Committee of the Chinese Society of Optimization, Overall Planning and Economical Mathematics, as well as a member of numerous Societies in China, Japan and the world. Awarded many times by the China Society of Logistics, Professor Xie also co-founded the Sustainable Food Supply Chain Innovation Forum and research network and is known as a training expert in technical economics. Furthermore, he has been offering logistics consulting or training services for enterprises and institutions such as China Railway, Shandong Port Logistics Group, Shandong Hi-speed Logistics Group, Weifang Comprehensive Free Trade Zone, Shandong Marine Group, Shandong Agriculture Development Credit Guarantee, SHUIFA Group, and Chambroad Logistics Co., Ltd. Professor Xie has been invited to the University of Tokyo, Fudan University, Kobe University, Hosei University, Korea Marine & Ocean University, Ocean University of China, Ningbo University and others to give academic reports.
Between 2001 and 2022, China's trade volume of agricultural products increased from $27.9 billion to $334.32 billion, an increase of about 11 times, with an average annual growth rate of about 12.6 percent. In 2021, the agricultural imports in China accounted for 10.2% of the global total, making China, the largest importer of agricultural products back then, and the largest buyer of grain, meat and other agricultural products. No. 1 Central Document for 2023 clearly noted that "we should give full play to the role of international trade in agricultural products and further implement the strategy of diversifying agricultural imports". In recent years, such typical incidents as the China-Us trade friction and the Russia-Ukraine conflict have posed great threats to the stability of agricultural products supply and thus there is an urgent need for the world to enhance the flexibility of supply chains and jointly prevent and deal with the risk of supply chain disruptions. In order to solve the problem of food supply for 1.4 billion people in China, the security and stability of the agricultural product supply chain is particularly significant. In such a severe situation, the Report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China stressed that China should "focus on improving the resilience and security of the industrial and supply chain" and "ensure the security of food, energy resources and important industrial and supply chain". In view of this, timely research on the strategy to enhance the resilience of China's supply chain of the agri-food has far-reaching strategic significance.
Resilience of the supply chain means the ability to maintain the stability and smoothness of the supply channel, and quickly adjust and restore to the original state when the supply chain is disturbed by internal and external shocks. Under the emergency situation, the resilience of the agri-food supply chain should pay great attention to the characteristics of the chain itself, with the purpose of providing corresponding emergency agricultural food. Compared with general supplies, it has remarkable characteristics, namely timeliness, phase orientation, continuity and security. Timeliness highlights the importance of agricultural food, which must be effectively supplied in the prescribed time, keep the quality and freshness, and ensure the basic needs of residents. Phase orientation refers to the gradual transition from convenient and storable food to nutritious and energy food, and then daily supply is restored if conditions permitting. Continuity emphasizes that residents' demand for food is continuous. Security focuses on food security. To improve the resilience of the agri-food supply chain, the above four characteristics must be highly emphasized, and the corresponding work must be carried out:
1) Focus on the local industry chain for the agri-food, and quickly integrate and build short food supply chains.
In the event of emergencies, inter-regional transportation, logistics and even supply chains are blocked or interrupted. In regard of this situation, regions should give priority to the development and integration of local food supply chains after resumption according to the characteristics of the local agricultural products industry, and build short food supply chains(SFSC) based on local production and consumption. SFSC is a food supply model with the core of reducing the lengthy intermediate links of the food supply chain and shortening the distance between the parties involved in the transaction. The model is of great significance for supporting local economic development, promoting environmental protection, and ensuring the security and diversification of the agri-food. As a model of a sustainable agri-food supply chain, it can exert effect in the long term, and also provide a support for emergency support for the agri-food.
2) Utilize the municipal, provincial and national main roads for the resumption of the agri-food supply chain.
The concentration of population and the imbalance of the agri-food production determine that the production and consumption of the agri-food will not be confined to the local area, a trend further intensified by industrial division under globalization. The "transport of grain from the north to the south" has become the norm in China, and the international trade of the agri-food is more active. The priority for resumption is to ensure the smooth flow of key transport channels, remove bottlenecks in logistics as soon as possible, and coordinate the resumption of the procurement, production, sales and distribution of raw materials involved in the supply for the agri-food. The Ministry of Transport of the PRC has issued relevant supportive policies for key infrastructure such as highways, railways, airports and ports. The State Post Bureau has also made relevant arrangements for postal services, express delivery and logistics. Only by fully utilizing these municipal, provincial and national main roads that the resilience of the recovery of the agri-food supply chain be well supported.
3) Shore up weak links and establish systems to improve the system of emergency agri-food supply chain.
The review of major emergencies in the early stage reveals the weakness of the agri-food supply chain in the types and quantities of reserves and response to emergencies destitute of timeliness. Therefore, it is imperative to establish the corresponding management system based on the four characteristics of timeliness, phase orientation, continuity and security of the response to the agri-food emergency, so as to improve the system of emergency agri-food supply chain and thus achieve seamless connection between daily and emergency supply chain. Stakeholders in the agri-food supply chain system such as the government, enterprises and employees should fulfill their responsibilities, ensure corresponding services, and make joint efforts to establish a stable and effective communication mechanism in the long run.
