Robert Lamb’s scientific contributions

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to severe disruptions in the supply and demand channels of agriculture and food chains. To begin to address challenges arising from this pandemic, the “Agriculture and Food Supply Chain Resilience in the Face of a Health Crisis” project emerged as an initiative of the Agriculture Food Special Interest Group of the System Dynamics Society, and was conducted as a (virtual) group model building study with eight system dynamics researchers, practitioners, and students from six different countries. As a result of the project, a stock-flow diagram with nine modules (Food Supply Chain, Food Market, Farm Finance, Agricultural Inputs, Labor, Shelf Life, Cooperation, Information, and Community Health) was built to discuss the effects of the pandemic from the viewpoint of smallholder farmer communities. We depicted the causal relationships and feedback loops related to food supply chain resilience, mainly focusing on the barriers in input access and market access. This study has been prepared to facilitate dialogue among related stakeholders and provide critical causal loops for researchers and practitioners interested in providing formal simulation modeling solutions to mitigate the effects of these disruptions and enhancing agriculture and food supply chain resilience.

COVID-19 has caused severe agriculture and food supply chain disruptions, significantly affecting smallholder farmers who supply most of the world's food, specifically their changes in vulnerability, resilience, and food loss and waste. Therefore, the objective of this study was to understand the complex causal and feedback relationships for this system by developing a dynamic hypothesis and causal loop diagrams utilizing the System Dynamics methodology. Results provide a roadmap for dialogue and a framework for case-specific model development and help to guide policy decisions for smallholder farmers' survival during health crises.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to severe disruptions in the supply and demand channels of agriculture and food chains. As a fundamental approach to addressing complex social, managerial, economic, or ecological problems, system dynamics models have been used to provide a shared understanding of agriculture and food systems resilience and to enhance decision-making for policy actions. To begin to address challenges arising from this pandemic, eight system dynamics researchers from different countries participated (virtually) in a group model building study. The project, “Agriculture and Food Supply Chain Resilience in the Face of a Health Crisis”, emerged as an initiative of the Agriculture Food Special Interest Group of the System Dynamics Society. As a result of the project, a stock-flow diagram with nine modules (Food Supply Chain, Food Market, Farm Finance, Agricultural Inputs, Labor, Shelf Life, Cooperation, Information, and Community Health) was built to understand the effects of the pandemic from the viewpoint of small-scale farmer communities. This preprint has been prepared and distributed to facilitate dialogue and to generate feedback from researchers interested in providing modeling solutions to mitigate the effects of these disruptions and enhancing agriculture and food supply chain resilience.