Living Local: Exploring Local Agricultural Supply Chains as a Sustainable Alternative

The traditional supply chain paradigm with its focus on globalisation is limited in its ability to tackle anthropogenic climate change and the depletion of natural resources. In this paper, we use an ecosystemic approach to develop a novel model of local, sustainable supply chain operations in the agricultural industry. We draw on the example of vertical farms—where agricultural produce is grown and distributed at, or as close as possible to, the point of consumption—to illustrate how technology can lead to the development of sustainable local supply chain networks. These networks consist of integrated inter-organisational relations and activities that follow ecosystem principles such as reciprocity, recovery, and homeostasy. Within this context, local agricultural supply chains embody various benefits across the environmental, social, and economic dimensions.