sustainable food value chain development: perspectives from developing and emerging economies

The book addresses the gap that exists in sustainable value chain development in the context of developing and emerging economies in meeting the sustainable development goals. The book adopts a holistic approach and discusses significant aspects of the topic such as challenges, opportunities, best practices, technology and innovation, business models, and policy formulation. The chapters focus on all the existing and potential actors in the value chain. Comprising invited chapters from leading researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and academicians working on this topic, this edited book is useful for scientists, researchers, students, research scholars, and practitioners as it builds the latest interdisciplinary knowledge in the area. An important aspect of the book is the case studies of already ongoing projects from various emerging economies around the world.

Contributions are divided into four sections-sustainable food systems and circular economy: tackling resource use, efficiency, food loss, and waste problems; technology and innovation for food value chain development; toward responsible food consumption; linking small farmers to markets: markets, institutions, and trade. Significantly, the book is organized in the context of Sustainable Development Goals and has direct relevance and linkages with SDG 1 (poverty alleviation), SDG 2 (zero hunger), SDG 3 (good health and well-being), SDG 4 (quality education), SDG 5 (gender equality), SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production), SDG 13 (climate action), and SDG 17 (partnerships).

Sapna A Narula currently serves Nalanda University, India where she is Professor & Dean of School of Management Studies. She is a distinguished academician in agribusiness and sustainability who has made immense contribution to the discipline through her teaching, research and consultancy efforts. During her career span of 22 years in university teaching, research & consultancy, she has also played a key role in advancing education for agribusiness through a number of initiatives targeted at raising awareness generation and capacity building amongst corporates, youth, managers and policy-makers. She has played key role in designing innovative academic programmes such as MBA/ Business Sustainability, MBA/ Agribusiness and MBA/ Food Supply Chain Management. She has also spearheaded various sustainability initiatives which she promoted for youth such as Green Shift (2018), BLISS (Building Learning in Sustainability Science, 2014) and has been on the jury of many sustainability related awards/ initiatives. She is currently serving as President of Global Network for Sustainable Development, Arizona, US as its President has been associated with UN Global Compact Network of India, PRME (Principles of Responsible Management Education), Connecting Dreams Foundation and National Agricultural Higher Education Project (ICAR) in various advisory roles for the cause of sustainable development goals. She has also held key leadership positions in prestigious Universities in India and has delivered several keynotes, distinguished sessions in many Universities abroad. She was a visiting professor in Deptt of Management, Deakin University, Australia. (2018). A recipient of many awards notably Prosper.Net Scopus Young Scientist Award for Sustainable Development, 2011 delivered jointly by German Ministry, United Nations University & Elsevier and a Young Scientist Award (2009) from Uttarakhand Council for Science and Technology, Government of Uttarakhand, she has worked on research projects funded by various national and international organizations EPSRC, DFID, IFAD., Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. One of the research project where she led sustainable livelihood work has also won UN Global Compact Innovative SDG Practices Award 2019. She has published her research extensively in journals (Journal of Cleaner Production, Journal of sustainable Mining, Business Strategy and Development, CSR and Environmental Management among many others) and a paper written by her in context of organic food has won Outstanding Paper Award 2021.

S. P. Raj is chair of the marketing department and Distinguished Professor at the Whitman School of Management, Syracuse University. He holds the Irwin & Marjorie Guttag Endowed Professorship and serves as Director of the Snyder Center for Marketing Innovation Management and chair of the Department of Marketing, Supply Chain and Retail Management. He has previously served as interim dean and as senior associate dean for the school. He was also a tenured full professor of marketing at Cornell University and a visiting faculty at Kellogg School in Northwestern University. He was the founding editor of the Journal of Agribusiness in Developing and Emerging Economies. Raj’s research on marketing strategies, their influence on customer behavior, and managing new product development and innovation is cited extensively with over 2400 citations in the Social Sciences Citation Index and 6500 in Google Scholar. His work has been recognized with prestigious awards such as the John D.C. Little Award by the Institute for Management Sciences, finalist for the William F O’Dell award by the Journal of Marketing Research, the Donald R. Lehmann Award by the AMA and many Best Paper awards in conferences. His research was supported by the NSF/Corporate Center for Innovation Management Studies. He has published in leading journals such as Marketing Science, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, Research Policy, European Journal of Operational Research, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Product Innovation Management, and IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management.