Digitalizing agri-food supply chains to achieve Sustainable Development Goals: a systematic literature review

Improving the economic, social, and environmental sustainability of agri-food supply chains (AFSCs) is of paramount importance, given the impact of AFSC on the survival of mankind and of the planet. Data analytics, and the digital technologies supporting collection and analysis of the (big) data produced within and outside AFSCs, represent potentially powerful tools to improve such sustainability. However, how these new technologies can support AFSCs in reaching the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) defined by the United Nations is still under-explored. This paper aims, through a systematic literature review, to provide an answer to such question. To this goal, 50 papers were analysed. Results suggest that digital technologies can support ASFCs in reaching SDGs by supporting real time monitoring, sharing of data across the supply chains, improving decision making by performing scenario analyses and by enabling automation of some activities. These contributions call for the building of a Decision Support System for AFSCs. Finally, directions for future research are presented.