The twin transformation in the agri-food sector as a way to sustainable development:

the institutional approach

Francesca Checchinato
Cinzia Colapinto
Vladi Finotto
Christine Mauracher
Alena Myshko
(all - Agri-food Management and Innovation Lab, Department of Management, Ca’ Foscari
university; Venice, Italy)

Introduction
The global challenges, such as climate change and food insecurity among others, require
the revision and re-composition of economies and supply chains at large, as well as search
for new ways to adapt each industry’s process, and agriculture and agri-food is no exception.
Even further, a significant impact on the environment is created by the agricultural processes
starting from the exploitation of the soil, physical distribution of goods, to the retailers’
operations and consumption. Agri-food is among the largest industries in the European
countries due to its extensive supply chains. One of the ways to address the consequences
of this dramatic impact is deployment of smart and digital technologies in the agricultural
sector, the agri-food in particular. Smart and 4.0 technologies, on the one hand, could help
firms increase their productivity and their competitiveness in general; on the other hand, they
allow for sustaining profit-making with the improvement of workers’ conditions, the reduction
of emissions and environmental impacts on fields and production plants, reducing the overall
footprint of the industry.
The transformation of the food systems is one of the major and most powerful ways towards
sustainable development and progress in achieving all seventeen sustainable development
goals (Bilali et al., 2021). According to the European Commission, the implementation of
digital technologies in agriculture will enable increased economic and environmental
performance and environmental sustainability, as well as overall competitiveness of the EU
digital supply industry, improved working conditions and increased transparency. Moreover, a
combination of the new digital tools with the already integrated automated technologies is
supposed to support farmers to be more precise with inputs while enhancing their knowledge
of agro-ecological conditions. The incorporation of digital strategy in economic activities,
including the agricultural sector, has been framed by several policies on the European level,
including Cohesion Policy, Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), and especially the European
Green Deal, which includes Farm to Fork strategy. At the heart of the Green Deal is the

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promotion of the twin green and digital transition by linking together principally different in its
nature and dynamics transitions for greater management of risks (Muench et al., 2022).
While the policy initiatives largely contribute to expansion of sustainability in industries
through digitalisation, there are various factors influencing the local practical implications of
policy initiatives and their effectiveness.
Our research focuses on the role of institutions for the twin transition within the agri-food
sector. In particular, it considers the variety of factors and elements within the institutional
environment, which enable or, on the contrary, limit the technological applications and their
effectiveness. The research utilises and synthesises, on the one hand, the institutional
approach, and, on the other hand, the three sustainability pillars (economic, environmental,
and social) framework. The result is a synthetic conceptual framework that allows not only to
analyse the pathways between applications of specific technologies and their input in
sustainability dimensions but also the institutional context of those applications. The
research design is based on the methodology of systematic literature review and policy
analysis regarding the adoption of specific digital technologies and evaluation of their impact
on operations, networks and local sector’s configuration. In the sphere of policy making, this
research can advise the development of digital strategies for agribusiness regarding the
existing resources, needs and predicted outcomes.

Conceptual framework
The theoretical and conceptual basis of the current study is a synthesis of two frameworks -
the three sustainability pillars framework and the institutional framework or theory. The
former has been closely tied to the discussion of sustainability and sustainable development
agenda within various socio-economic sectors for a couple of decades. The perspective of
its application to consider sustainability in agriculture has been affirmed by a number of
researchers (for example, Bradley, 2022; Eldridge and Nisar, 1995; Opschoor and van der
Straaten, 1993), managers, and policymakers. The debate regarding sustainability issues
and sustainable development has been largely based on the approach to the phenomenon
through its pillars, or dimensions (Purvis et al., 2019). At the core is the perception of the
complex nature of sustainability, which encompasses several dimensions and their
interconnectedness.
To start with, recently the concept of sustainability has been employed by numerous different
sources, including academic papers, industrial reports, and policymaking discourse.
Although, the ambiguity of the concept’s definition and omnipresent use should not
under-rate the importance of its agenda. In this way, the three pillars framework is one of the
paths to surmount the difficulty of the concept’s understanding and operationalisation. The
concept’s origin is associated with the United Nations Brundtland Commission’s report ‘Our

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Common Future’ (WCED, 1987), where sustainability was defined ‘as development that
meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their needs’ (Thomsen 2013). To ensure that the current needs are not
negatively affecting the future needs of populations, the framework of the seventeen
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) was developed to improve the current and future
living conditions.
The triple bottom framework encompasses three dimensions of sustainability -
environmental, economic and social, which are interconnected and create the basis for
sustainable communities and industries. The economic understanding of sustainability is
often associated with economic growth and an increase in efficiency, which presupposes that
resources are allocated to their highest valued use and, consequently, there is a rise in
productivity and capital assets (Elliott, 2005). Then, environmental, or ecological,
sustainability in agriculture focuses on the continued productivity and functioning of
ecosystems, which includes a range of factors from resource base quality, the preservation
of physical conditions and resources and of biological diversity to productive capacities and
climate change mitigation (Yunlong and Smith, 1994). Social sustainability can be defined
through the human appropriation of the environment and focuses on the availability of
access to social resources by current and future generations, represented in intra- and
inter-generational equity respectively (De Gennaro and Nardone, 2014, p. 25). Social
sustainability is a more complicated concept, compared to the other two dimensions, to
translate not only in an operational definition of a condition but also in a measurement
framework. To apply the framework to practice and decision making, each of its dimensions
is often conceptualised through various aspects which, in turn, can be measured.
Additionally, some research goes beyond the classical framework with three pillars by adding
more dimensions to sustainability to emphasise its complex nature. While in the literature
stream adopting the ‘extended’ framework, the fourth pillar is the cultural one (not least due
to its explicit representation in Agenda 21), several researchers focus on the role of
institutions and distinguish institutional sustainability pillar (Hosseini and Kaneko, 2012;
Kajembe et al, 2016; Pfahl, 2005, and others). Within the context of governance for
sustainable development, institutional sustainability consists of the institutions’ capabilities
and activities related to coordination and ‘the facilitation of decision making and
implementation of sustainability policies’, often in order to achieve sustainability goals (Pfahl,
2005, pp. 83 - 84). For their part, institutions can be understood as systems, which are
consistent with different sub-systems, ‘driven by their own need to acquire and process
resources’ (Brinkerhoff and Goldsmith, 1990, p. 22).
Thereby, the three pillars framework can be extended by adding other dimensions, including
an institutional one. The attention to institutions is crucial for understanding not only the

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sustainability phenomenon itself but also the factors affecting policies targeted at sustainable
development. Our research departs from the idea of institutions’ inclusion in the
sustainability framework; although, it does not consider them as one of the interconnected
pillars.
In such a way, in this research the three pillars framework is combined with the institutional
approach, which puts institutions at the heart of understating social interactions and
economic transactions. The approach, on the contrary to the three pillars framework, grows
out of theoretical foundations and has been applied to policy making comparatively recently.
The institutional approach is probably one of the most interdisciplinary frameworks in
economic theory. It is rooted in several theoretical flows, among which the major ones are
economic sociology (in particular, the theory of fields (Fligstein and MacAdam, 2012)) and
the economics of conventions (Thevenot, 1984, 2001; Young, 1996). The main grounds are,
however, the institutional economics or institutionalism (T. Veblen), and the new institutional
economics (D.North, 1991; Olstrom, 1990; Williamson 2000, and others). The latter one
concentrates majorly on how formal and informal institutions constrain or enable the
behaviour of individuals and groups (DiMaggio, 1998).
Broadly, the institutional approach understands institutions, both formal and informal, as
cultural formations based on traditions and customs. One of the founders of the institutional
economics and research in economic and institutional change D. North defined institutions
as 'the humanly devised constraints that structure political, economic and social interaction’,
which ‘consist of both informal constraints (sanctions, taboos, customs, traditions, and codes
of conduct), and formal rules (constitutions, laws, property rights)’ (North, 1997, p. 97).
Hodgson (2006) has expanded the approach to institutions by defining them as ‘durable
systems of established and embedded social rules that structure social interactions’. Thus,
institutions are systems of formal and informal rules, which set the boundaries and organise
the interactions within them. Moreover, it incorporates a system of measures to ensure the
implementation of rules, or an (external) enforcement mechanism (North, 1990).
One of the central concepts of the approach is institutional environment, which generally
refers to ‘a series of legal systems, government governance, economic and social
environment used to establish the basis of production, exchange and distribution’ (Du, 2018,
p. 1942). Institutional environment includes political and economic institutions, as well as
socio-cultural institutions such as informal norms (Henisz and Delios, 2015, p. 340). Culture
and cultural institutions can stimulate or inhibit economic development through the structure
and level of transaction costs. In turn, ‘the emergence of growth due to a decrease in
transaction costs allows us to interpret the totality of sociocultural factors as a social and
cultural capitals’ (Auzan, 2021, p. 18). And one of the major social capital is education.

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In a broad way, cultural factors consist of such key elements as culture, language, religion,
and education. It is important to underline that some research differentiates between
institutional and socio-cultural fields on the basis of different effects produced by them. In
contrast, our approach follows an undressing of institutions as cultural structures in the first
place; therefore, it does not seem prospectively to attempt to distinguish them.
The institutional approach to sustainable development focuses majority on the role of
institutions and institutional mechanisms to transform the existing practices. Within the
institutional approach, ‘institutions constitute and legitimise political actors and provide them
with consistent behavioural rules, conceptions of reality standards of assessment, affective
ties, and endowments, and thereby with a capacity for purposeful action’ (March and Olsen,
1996, p. 249). In such a way, political actors do not exist outside the institutional field and are
institutional actors at the same time. Relations between institutions and policies Shearer at
at. (2016) explain that ‘institutions, which include policies themselves, shape policy change
primarily through the ways in which they create and distribute incentives and learning’ (p.
1201).
One of the flaws of the existing research dedicated to the institutional approach to
sustainability is its focus mostly on formal institutions. Moreover, it investigates policies (in a
narrow, legal sense) for sustainable development, which, in turn, can be attributed to formal
institutions. Although, the institutional framework rooted in economic sociology and
institutional economics provides a wider set of structures within the institutional environment.
Institutions and institutional environments can ‘not only promote the transition <to
sustainable development> but also suppress it, for example, by impairing quality of an
innovation process or by deterring green entrepreneurship’ (Tambovtsev, 2019, p. 105). The
institutional environment or dimension plays a critical role in achieving sustainable
development goals by virtue of the integration of its economic, social, and ecological goals
(Vogelpohl and Aggestam, 2012, p. 57).
Therefore, institutions play a twofold role in the sustainable transition: on the one hand, they
frame the implementation and effectiveness of the novel principles and innovations. On the
other hand, the existing institutional environment is changing under the new conditions.
Olstrom (2009) underlines that ‘the long-term sustainability of rules devised at a focal
social-ecological systems’ level depends on monitoring and enforcement as well their not
being overruled by larger government policies’ (p. 422). Moreover, formal and informal
institutions within the institutional environment affect the development in different ways,
which are framed by the stage and regime of their functioning, reproduction, effectiveness of
enforcement mechanisms and other.
To conclude, the institutional economics framework has been used to address sustainable
development (e.g., Bradley, 2022). Although, a synthesis of three sustainability pillars

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framework and the institutional approach provides the researchers with a more holistic and
complex approach to sustainability and sustainable development. This combination of the
approaches forms a conceptual framework to address development of various sustainability
aspects within the institutional environment. It is applied to study both the academic literature
and policy making focused on sustainable development and digitalisation, or twin
transformation of the agri-food sector. In order to understand how the policy-driven twin
transformation takes place in the sector, firstly it requires to consider the comprehensiveness
and consistency of digital integrations within the supply chain. The order and scope of
technological deployment affects its performance, effectiveness and deriving contribution to
the sustainability dimensions. At the same, the process of digital technological
implementation exists in a certain institutional environment and is affected by its institutions
and various factors.
In such a way, our research was driven by three main research questions:
How are digital and smart technologies implemented within the agri-food supply chain?
How do digital technologies transform agri-food’s sustainability?
How do institutions affect the policymaking in agri-food?

Policy framework
One of the major ways of an institution to reproduce itself is through stimulation of following
its norms and prescription, which can be done through a certain policy. In this way, a deeper
look into the existing policy making can show which are the types of behaviour, institution or
set of institutions are interested in reproduction. At the same time, policy framing depends on
the institution, its organisational characteristics, embeddedness in the society and so on, as
well as the institution's functioning regime. To put in other words, policy implementation and
resulting outputs depend on a set of institutions and its functioning within a certain context,
or on ‘the capacity of the actors and institutions involved’ (Mahmud, 2017, p. 140). From an
institutional approach, ‘policymaking can be observed as a process which is guided along
previously beaten tracks by institutional structure – a process in which individual choices are
influenced by structures rather than outcome’ (Hendriks, 1999, p. 67).
At the same time, the characteristics of the environment such as shocks, global challenges
and others affect the functioning of institutions, as well as the development and
implementation of policies. There are various reasons behind institutional changes, with risks
and uncertainties being one of the most crucial ones, as well as behind the introduction of
novel policy directions. The turn to sustainability, which tracks its beginnings from the United
Nations Brundtland Commission, has been a reaction to growing global challenges, in
particular climate change and food insecurity. Since then, the emphasis on the

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environmental and social issues within economic growth has been expanding and integrated
into various policies across sectors and nations.
While the sustainability agenda as the focal point in policy making has a certain history, the
potential of digital and smart innovations has only been explored. In most policy making and
governance discourse, integration of digital technologies, or digitalisation, has been
discussed more as a means to approach challenges or goals than as an objective itself. To
put in other words, digitalisation can be understood, on the one hand, as a policy or industry
response to a certain change or invocation. On the other hand, growing integration of
technological solutions in various spheres, or era of digitalisation, is one of the conditions,
which affect economic sectors such as agriculture and their governance (Ehlers et al, 2022).
There are increasing expectations from different actors, from policymakers to stakeholders,
that digital technologies are going to transform the agricultural and agri-food sector by
assisting the operations and transactions with new technologies and their capabilities for
visualisation, speed, precision and transparency. Moreover, digital technologies ‘are
becoming part of the agricultural policy toolbox to aid compliance monitoring, data exchange
and analysis’; although, ‘it is still unclear just how the potential of digital technology could
induce a change of agricultural policy in this direction <of the effectiveness of policy>’
(Ehlers et al, 2021).
This brings us to an important point that digital technologies do not solve sustainability
challenges or contribute to sustainable development per se. It can be explained by the
interconnectivity and interdependency among the pillars. For example, digital technology can
decrease the carbon footprint and emission but be related with higher risks for labour or
greater investments without sufficient returns. In this way, the technology won't necessarily
increase sustainability in a wider and more holistic understanding. However, appropriate
and operational technological implementation and its governance can create a significant
impact on the sector's sustainability and assist efficiently in policymaking. Digital
technologies provide ‘with functions that can catalyse the green transition’ and support it in
different ways, their implementation depends on various economic, social, and political
factors (Muench et al., 2022).
To investigate the transformation towards sustainability through the implementation of digital
technologies, this research focuses on one of the largest policies to transform the agriculture
and agri-food sectors and its place within the policy landscape - the European Green Deal. It
is important to underline that the national agricultural and agri-food sectors in the European
Union countries have been largely shaped by policies on the supra-national level, which are
largely interconnected and create a certain policy landscape.
To start with, the history of the unified approach to agriculture on the European level dates
back to 1962, when the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) had been introduced. The policy

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had set a number of aims for a prosperous partnership between agriculture and society,
such as maintaining rural areas and landscapes, supporting farmers and improving
agricultural productivity among others (The common agricultural policy at glance). The CAP
highlighted several specific features of the agricultural sector, which differs it from other
industries. Apart from pursuing a significantly lower income among farmers compared to
non-agricultural sectors, agriculture is largely dependent on weather conditions and climate
change. This, in turn, is the major reason behind a high degree of uncertainty in the sector,
which affects all nodes of the supply and value chain and related predictions. Since then
CAP has been a starting point for European agricultural policy, its provisions have largely
influenced the creation of the following institutions, and policies.
The common policy has a long history with various strong criticisms and debates around it,
mostly for the economic and environmental issues. It is argued that the group to benefit the
most from the incentives was the minor group of the largest European farming enterprises,
while the smallholder farmers experienced shortages of both institutional and financial
support. In the environmental perspective, the large investments in combating climate
change conditions did not correspond to the effectiveness of the introduced measures of
greening (e.g, Pe'er and Lakner, 2020). Moreover, the policy has remained immobile and
structurally fixed for a long time with the following essential reforms from 1992 (Garzon,
2006). The latest agreement on the policy’s reform was in 2021 and, according to the
European Commission, it will be a key tool in reaching the ambitions of the European Green
Deal and Farm to Fork strategy. In this way, the policies’ objectives and tools have to be in
coherence, while the CAP can act as an instrument to achieve the EU Green Deal objectives
(despite the fact that the latter came after the main CAP’s reforms).
The Green Deal is the largest recent policy initiative on the EU level to promote and deliver
climate-neutral goals within sustainable development. A set of policy initiatives by the
European Commission was authorised in 2020 and focused on the reduction of greenhouse
gas emissions in all economic sectors, including farming. The communication document,
which set out the Deal, underlined the need for transformative policies for clean energy
supply across various industries. The policy focuses primarily on reducing greenhouse gas
emissions and supporting energy from clean sources, as well as fostering international
climate change negotiations. The key aspect of the financial dimension of the policy is
sustainable finance, which ‘reflects the idea of making sustainability considerations part of
the financial decision-making process’ (Sikora, 2021, p. 693).
The EU Green deal consists of several policy initiatives, including launching in 2020 the
From Farm to Fork (F2F) strategy in the farming sector, which aims at fair, healthy and
environmentally friendly food systems. It is the first initiative of that scale at the European
level which focuses entirely on food systems. The timeline of the strategy’s actions has

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started in 2022 and focuses on the three sectors: empowering citizens to make healthy and
sustainable choices; supporting farmers and fishers and enabling the transition; and nature
and climate. The F2F strategy primarily aims not at concrete decisions but ‘rather
communicates the values, objectives and instruments that will govern European food policy
in the future’ (Reinhard, 2022, p. 3). Among the benefits of the strategy can be named the
development of ‘an institutional alignment in the innovation system by providing a clear
agenda for transformation and proposing various innovation support measures’ (Reinhard,
2022, p. 2). At the same time, an advanced or complete institutional alignment requires a
clear vision on engaged institutions and their functions within a particular policy-making.

Methodology
The research methodology is based on the combination of two main methods - systematic
literature review and qualitative policy review. A combined methodology of two methods
allows to analyse different types of sources such as academic publications on the one hand
and policy related reports, documents, and sources on other hand. The sources were
analysed through the lenses of the synthetical conceptual framework, which was both the
basis for the development of categories (or codes) and for the following data analysis. Such
an analysis is conducted in order to investigate the twin transformation within the agri-food
sector in the context of institutional environment and factors.
a) Systematic literature review
To investigate the outlined research questions we have conducted a systematic literature
review. The research follows guidelines developed by Fink (2010) and Tranfield et al. (2003)
for conducting an evidence-informed systematic literature review with a high level of
transparency and reduced distortion. Following the steps in this review, the research
questions and bibliographic database were selected, then at the conceptualisation step
research terms were defined. Web of Science (WoS) was selected as the main database to
investigate the relevant literature for the analysis, with a parallel search carried out using the
same keywords on Google Scholar. This investigation focused on terms related to, firstly, the
agri-food sector, and, secondly, to smart technological development within the connection to
sustainability (and sustainable development). We have also applied both practical and
methodological quality screens (Fink, 2010).
The final search and data download were performed on February 14, 2022. We used the
following key search: (agri* OR agri-food OR agrifood OR food OR agribusiness OR
agri-business) AND (industry 4 OR smart OR smart-agri* OR agri-tech OR agritech) AND
(sustainab*). The search was limited by the topic parameter (title, abstract and keywords).
Moreover, we analysed only the articles under the WOS social-science index (including
management). The dataset consisted of 568 articles. Next, we have dismissed those articles

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which did not contain reference to the agri-food sector, then also those with no relevance to
either digital technological implementations or sustainability dimensions. In the end, we
allocated a final selection of 148 papers, which is at the heart of the analysis and discussion.
The papers in the selection included all the search parameters, i.e. smart technological
advancement and sustainability in the agri-food business.
To analyse the final dataset, we applied the three sustainability pillars framework to the
process of smart technologies implementations in agri-food, collecting data on three general
categories: supply chain composition (nodes and actors engaged in technological
implementation); sustainability (conceptualised through three pillars or dimensions); and
institutional environment. A complex category of supply chain consisted of reasons for a
digital solution, nodes (or steps) and groups of actors, which were developed on the basis of
agri-food supply chain management’s approach. The grounds for analysis of the scope and
order of digitalisation in the sector were based on the representation of categories of nodes
in the dataset (number or percentage per each category). The variety of aspects related to
three sustainability pillars contributed to the extension of their substantial understanding.
Whereas the distribution of papers according to categories of pillars was associated with
their representation in the dataset. The complex category of the institutional environment
was conceptualised through institutional factors related to economic, political, and
socio-cultural institutions. The variety of institutional aspects, as well as their coverage in the
dataset, contributed to understanding of the institutional environment.

b) Qualitative policy review

The investigation of a set of policies in agriculture and in particular the agri-food sector was
conducted through policy review as a research method. Generally speaking, such type of
analysis helps ‘to understand the use of research evidence in policy making and generate a
heightened understanding of the values, interests and political contexts underpinning policy
decisions’ (Browne at al., 2019, p. 1032). It is based on qualitative review of various policy
related documents, which include official reports and factsheets, websites publications,
discussion papers and others. It is important to underline that policy review differs from
policy analysis, which is aimed at practical approaches to provide a client-oriented advice or
recommendation. In contrast, policy review is a social qualitative method, which focuses
mostly on document analysis to understand the nature of issues beyond policy’s official
outputs and evidence. It is a descriptive analysis with the existing policies under
investigation, not prescriptive analysis of new policies. The focus has been placed not so
much on the investigation of existing policy’s impact but interpretation of its process and
structure. At the same time, the research takes into account varieties of interpretation in
policy analysis and attempts to avoid limitations of interpretations (Fisher et al, 2007). One of

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the ways is to analyse not only a certain policy and review the relevant outputs but also
correspond it to other sources, for example, existing academic literature.
Policy review can focus on a variety of articles selected according to certain categories or
according to a specific policy (one or more). There are different approaches to policy
analysis and review, including advocacy coalition framework, policy network analysis and
others (Browne et al, 2019). Among them, we distinguish institutionalism or institutional
approach, which was operationalised in institutional analysis and design (Ostrom, 1999). It
follows the main argument of institutional theory regarding the important role of institutions
on policy making.
The main policy under investigation is the European Green Deal and in particular Farm to
Fork strategy as its essential component. To broaden the policymaking landscape, the
analysis has also considered such initiatives as Common Agricultural Policy and EU
Cohesion Policy, as well as interconnections among them. The policy has been chosen as
the central one for the analysis due to its focus on sustainability and greening issues (as it is
clear form its title), as well as digital applications within several industries including
agriculture. To specify, the review included articles with the emphasis on agriculture and
agri-food as the domain of the analysis. The Green Deal is the first policy on the European
level to focus primarily on the transit to sustainable economic growth. It is targeted at wide
structural transformations of various sectors of economy, which are supported by large
funding. Moreover, it includes the first European initiative targeting specifically food systems
and linking their sustainable development with digital solutions. The strategy focuses on all
elements of food systems and supply chains, as well as targets the issue of food waste. To
add, all official policy documents are in open access and available for research. Therefore,
this policy is a new approach with a significant attention given to the agri-food for the first
time in the EU policy making history, which attempts to connect digitalisation with
sustainability agenda.
Our review focuses on a specific policy and the related content produced in official and
non-official sources. We have collected policy reports, website descriptions, related
academic articles discussing their elements. To investigate the official policy presentation,
the review included six official and six accompanying documents (twelve in total) produced
by the European Commission for Farm to Fork strategy (available on the website of the
Commission). To review the Green deal, the research investigated Communication and
roadmap on the European Green Deal, as well as other thirteen reports and factsheets
(Delivering the European Green deal section). Not all of them referred to the agri-food but
contributed to the general policy overview. Moreover, other posts and publications on the
Commission's webpage were included in the review.
The Fig. 1 presents a visual representation of research design

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The research’s methodology is perceived beneficial due to its usage of academic literature
and policy review to bridge the representation of the agri-food’s twin transformation in both
academic and policy discourses. However, the research limitations are related to, firstly, the
degree of coherence between the methods. This concerns for the beginning the
geographical scope: while the focus of policy review is on the European level, the academic
dataset covers a variety of countries and scopes. Then, while the policy review focuses on a
certain policy within a wider landscape of policies, dataset articles refer to various other
policies. Nevertheless, the combination of two review methods provides deeper investigation
in interlinking digitalisation with sustainable development; it highlights challenges arising in
the process of policy implementation. Moreover, the research faces the ‘traditional’ challenge
of generalisation of qualitative research in general (Fisher et al, 2007).

Discussion
Our analysis begins with the investigation of digital technological applications within the
agri-food supply chain, which is pursued and framed by policy making on the European
level. The EU policies (in particular, the EU Green Deal and F2F strategy) target
achievement of sustainable development through digitalisation in various sectors, or so
called twin transition. Within the agri-food sector, digitalisation of all the supply chain’s steps
is expected to contribute to sustainable development (Amentae and Gebresenbet, 2021). In
order to analyse how digital technologies are implemented within the agri-food supply chain

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(research question number one), we combine a functional approach to the supply chain,
which focuses on its nodes or steps, with the identification of engaged groups of actors.
Since one of the strongest motives behind the choice for digital solutions in agri-food has
been its promise to bring inputs in sustainability, according to both academic research and
policymaking, our research focuses on interlinking digitalisation with sustainability. To
examine how digital and smart technologies transform agri-food’s sustainability (the second
research question), the technological adoptions are analysed through environmental,
economic, and social dimensions, and their interlinks. Such an analysis provides a complex
approach to the changes of the sector’s operations and interactions brough by digitalisation
through policies. Although, the understanding of the twin transformation in the agri-food will
not be complete without an outlook on how it is determined by institutions (the third
research’s objective). To learn more about institutions’ role in framing policy implementation,
various institutional factors are identified and analysed.

a) The digitalisation of the agri-food supply chain: a structural imbalance

The integration of digital achievements in any sector or operation starts with a definition of
reasons for such implementation as it requires (often large) resources investment and
management. A digital or smart technology is an innovation in the first place, and
innovations are needed to stimulate the development and to overcome the challenges of
change. In turn, ‘the presence of change is explained primarily by external events that alter
institutional rules enough to provide a window for public action’ (Shearer et al., 2016, p.
1201). The necessity to change and adapt to new conditions are often behind the choice for
digitalisation. In the agricultural sector, one of the main challenges is climate change, which
is associated with desertification, with attendant increases in salinity, insect and animal
infestations, and floods (as well as droughts) (Blakeney, 2022). The choice for digital
innovation among other types of innovations for stakeholders can be stimulated by relevant
policies (top-down approach) or by local initiatives (bottom-up way).
After the judgement for digitalisation has been made, the relevant technology (or group of
technologies) has to be chosen concerning a variety of factors, including technological
characteristics, posed objectives, timeframe and else. The technology’s selection is closely
related to the agri-food supply chain composition and attributes. In such a way, a digital
technological advancement involves elements or nodes of the supply chain (where it is
implemented) and actors (who are engaged in the implementation).
To start with, the study investigates the introduction of digitalisation into functional nodes or
stages of the agri-food supply chain. The systematic literature review shows that a large
number of papers view digitalisation in general or specific digital technologies within the
sector of agriculture and agri-food in a general way (54 papers, or 36,5 percent). Another

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vast proportion of papers (26 percent) examines the phenomenon within the agricultural or
agri-food supply chain, including supply chain management without specification of
technological realisation at its nodes and operations. This allows, on the one hand, to
consider the novel technological integrations and their impacts within a large context of the
industry. On the other hand, such analysis does not provide with clear explanation how the
technology is integrated within the supply chain since it has to address specific physical
operations and transactions, either along the chain or limited to a specific node.
The rest of the papers address digital applications within the supply chain nodes, with an
exception of a few papers (six) without any specification. The research has a significant
overweight towards a certain supply chain’s step or node - production, or farming, as shown
in Fig. 2. The digital implementations on this step have been presented in the largest share
of the papers - 138, which is not only the largest number among other nodes but the largest
within the whole dataset. This makes the gap between farming and other nodes too large,
which, in turn, represents a remarkable imbalance of digitalisation covered in the dataset.
The following most covered step within the agri-food supply chain is distribution (20 papers),
with other steps being under-investigated to a great degree.

Fig.. 2. Representation of supply chain’s nodes in the dataset

To compare, the similar trend can be observed in policy documents and webpages. While
different nodes of the agri-food supply chains have been mentioned within investigated
policy outcomes and publications, the main focus has been placed on farming. Several
documents related to the European Green Deal address distribution and logistics, in
particular through transport, manufacturing, and consumption concerning the emissions
reduction and energy use. The policy initiative which addresses supply chain nodes more
substantially is Farm 2 Fork strategy. The communication document introducing the
European Green Deal and announcing F2F strategy has underlined the aim to ‘to stimulate
sustainable food consumption and promote affordable healthy food for all’ (The European
Green Deal, 2019). While most policy related documents attempt to analyse the agri-food
sector as a complex or system with interconnections of its elements, the focus has been

14
shifted to farming. One of the reasons for such attention is the primary role of farming in the
food production increase, which is crucial for fighting the global challenge of food insecurity.
Nevertheless, the produced food has to reach customers and consumers, which relies on
the coordination and continuity of the rest of the supply chain’s steps. In such a way, the
existing prevailing focus on farming and under-investigation of other sector’s nodes in both
policymaking and academic research can lead to undermining of a complex approach to
food systems.
An application of an innovation or a smart technology for a technical operation or transaction
is foremost a novel way of how people behave within a certain situation. In this way, it
changes the established way of behaviour of various actors, which are involved in an
operation or transaction. At the same time, the technological intervention and its
effectiveness depends on who are the actors involved and how do they copy with the
change. Therefore, analysis of digital applications within the agri-food supply chain will not
be complete without information regarding the actors.
The imbalance is presented also among groups of actors within the agri-food supply chain.
With a larger group of papers with not specified actors (38 items), the overwhelming majority
of papers concentrate on farmers and producers (139). Second large group of actors is
presented by consumers and customers, which is followed by a generic group of various
stakeholders (including experts and advisers) (47 and 37 papers respectively). Other groups
of actors engaged with digital implementations within the agri-food supply chain are:
agri-tech companies and firms (18); traders, distributors and retailers (11); communities
(sustainable, rural and else) and public (8); government, municipalities, and policymakers
(7); agri-cooperatives (6); and manufacture makers and suppliers (5).
Such a significant shift towards farming actors can be associated with the same reasoning
as for the imbalance towards farming step within the supply chain. It can also be related to
an approach in academic research to associate actors with the supply chain’s steps (Djekich
et al., 2021; Handayati et al., 2015). Therefore, the tendency to concentrate on a certain
element of the sector is reflected in the wider representation of the attributed actors, for
example, farming and farmers respectively. This approach narrows down the understating of
the agri-food supply chain to its functions and operations. Such a tendency can also be
observed in policy making reports and documents, which concentrate policy’s focus on the
sector as a whole or, as in F2F official documents, on the food systems, which are
interconnected. At the same time, both the Green Deal and F2F actions concentrate largely
on farming as the primary step in the supply chain process and farmers as the main actor
group. Such approach undermines the place and role of other steps and actors, in particular
suppliers for production (e.g., machinery suppliers ) and digital providers. The latter are not
covered within the agri-food supply chain by both academic papers and policy making in teh

15
review. While this research considers equally important all supply chain nodes and their
connectedness and continuity, it highlights the necessity to admit the role of suppliers of all
goods and services, including digital solutions.
To conclude, the current research under investigation presents a structural imbalance in
digital applications both in functional (functional nodes of supply chain) and actor
perspectives. In such a way, the supply chain’s structure has been treated unevenly by
integration of digital solutions. While there are various reasons behind such a tendency,
reflection of policy focus on certain sector’s elements and actors can be considered as one
of them. These disproportions affect not only the stability and continuity of technological
interventions. Furthermore, structural imbalance affects their effectiveness and the way they
transform (or not) the sector as a whole and lead it to a more sustainable state. The order
and scope of digitalisation within the supply chain influences its input in sustainability
dimensions and sustainable development in general.

b) The twin transformation of the agri-food: three sustainability dimensions

Sustainability in agriculture and agri-food can be understood through their interrelated and
interdependent pillars such as environment, economy, and society, or environmental,
economic and social sustainability. The sustainability enhancement, which is discussed
through sustainable development and associated goals in policymaking, is the primary goal
to sustain the socio-economic and bio-ecological systems for future generations. One of the
major reasons behind integration of digital technologies in the agricultural processes and
transactions is to contribute to sustainable development and bio-socio-economic balance, or
twin transformation. In this context, our research considers such contribution to sustainability
as a sector’s transformation insofar as it changes the current and future states of its
operation. To distinguish the inputs of digital technologies to a broad phenomenon of
sustainability, it has been approached through its three dimensions.
To begin with, both articles in dataset and policy documents and webpages employ the three
pillars framework and discuss sustainability through ecological, economic, and social issues
or aspects. Within policy review, the usage of the pillars approach is not even. While several
policy reports and official documents, which are not in the core set of policy documents, refer
to the framework, none of the official papers of the Green Deal and F2F actually utilise it. For
example, within supporting sustainability transitions under the European Green Deal with
cohesion policy, the appropriate balance between the three pillars of sustainable
development is an important target, which public authorities seek (Kelemen, 2020). At the
same time, references to sustainability and sustainable development throughout the core
policy documents appear frequently with an emphasis on ‘sustainable, fair, and competitive
future’ (Muench et al., 2022). In such a way, the three pillars framework has been

16
disappearing from the latest official papers and reports, at least of the European Green deal,
yet it has been a widely used approach to conceptualise sustainability within the policy
making landscape, for example, the European Cohesion Policy (Bahn-Walkowiak et al.,
2012).
In contrast, the systematic literature review shows a different presentation and distribution of
the three sustainability dimensions. The overwhelming majority of papers utilise the
framework in general or refer to its one or several pillars. All the papers discuss the
importance of environmental sustainability and the capacities of smart technologies to
expand it. According to the studied literature, the input by technologies into environmental
sustainability is not highly diverse but consistent. The main contribution is the aim to address
climate change and environmental conservation in general, in particular through the
reduction of carbon footprint. Diverse ways to reduce the footprint are discussed in regard to
farming and production processes. This attention is related to the imbalance towards farming
steps within the supply chain. The carbon footprint reduction is largely associated with
precision agriculture and precision farming, which is improving crop yields and assisting
management decisions using high technology sensor and analysis tools (Balafoutis et al.,
2017). Precision agriculture stimulates more efficient resource management, in particular
re-distribution of resources with higher efficiency. This, in turn, contributes to the disposal
supply chain step and waste management (Gebbers and Adamchuk, 2010).
Moreover, digital technologies assist in control and reduce the use of chemicals, antibiotics,
and synthetic chemical fertilizers, which is good for the health of both consumers and
farmers (Adamides, 2022). The implementation of certain technologies, for example big data
and artificial intelligence, can develop environmentally-conscious agriculture and reduce
deforestation for food production (Mahroof et al, 2021). Traceability enhancing technologies
such as blockchain promises to raise the certifications and sustainability standards which
goes on to support organic food and leads to a food life cycle of high quality (Kayikci, 2022).
The economic sustainability has also been addressed extensively in the dataset. Most of the
articles referred to improving the competitive performance of actors, mainly - farmers, and
supply chain performance in general (Latino et al, 2021). Various technologies, for example
blockchain, improve the production processes and make the existing supply chains agile,
resilient and responsive in the long term; add an aspect of sustainability which correlates
with the phenomenon of circular economy (Mukherjee et al, 2021). Digital technologies, in
particular blockchain and traceability systems, allow to decrease or eliminate completely the
intermediators in the operations, which, in turn, decreases or minimises transactional costs.
It is obtainable also due to building trust among actors and stakeholders within the agri-food
supply chain, for example, between producer and consumers (Ibid). Furthermore,
transparency and traceability associated with several digital technologies assists in dealing

17
with several challenges such as the lack of collaboration among actors, exchange of missing
information, and weak economic incentives (Nesrin et al, 2021). This contribution to the
economic dimension is especially important due to high informational costs and barriers to
enter markets, which remain one of top problems for smallholder farmers, and which were
reproduced also in various policy documents and actions.
While most of the research focuses on environmental and economic sustainability foremost,
social and cultural issues are largely under-investigated, as shown by a number of studies
and reviews (e.g., Bilali, 2021). Social sustainability is a complex phenomenon which
involves a number of issues varying from food security and justice to social networks and
trust among actors. Moreover, within social sustainability we can observe differentiation
inputs by stakeholders, which can be internal (employees and employers) and external ones
(for example, communities) (Lozano and Huisingh, 2011). One of the important
developments of social dimension is increase in trust and expansion of social networks,
which is brought by traceability. While it has a significant economic impact, it also increases
the stability and continuity of interactions and networks, which, in turn, contribute to stability
of supply chains and the sector as a whole. Another input in social sustainability discussed in
papers is access to knowledge and networking systems, as well as access to data and
decision support tools (Adamides, 2021). However, digital implementation does not provide
access to all actors per se. On the contrary, the data becomes a source, which is distributed
among actors not equally, which leads to various novel challenges and barriers.
Thus, this analysis shows that the original tendency towards prioritising environmental and
economic sustainability over the social one has transferred from policy discourse to
academic research. Nevertheless, the dataset provides wider and more detailed insight into
the various aspects of all the sustainability dimensions, including the social one. The
complex analysis of sustainability pillars demonstrates the presence and in addition the
importance of their interrelations, which has been highlighted by policymaking and analysis
(e.g., OECD, 2005). This research follows such a holistic approach to sustainability and the
interlinking of its dimensions. The analysed dataset displays the deployment of various
digital technologies in the agri-food sector and that all the digital technologies presented
have input in all three dimensions, to a greater or lesser extent.
However, there is a gap between the twin transformations presented in policymaking and
associated documents, on the one hand, and a discussion of ‘real’ digital integrations and
their outcomes in the main dataset and other policy relevant publications. These articles
identify various factors within local contexts of digital implementations, which affect not only
the timeline of the implementation but also its performance and effectiveness. These factors
were extracted from the dataset as context factors, which were present prior to a decision or
actual digital implementation. A variety of these factors, which constitute the institutional

18
environment, define the policy outcomes in general, including contributions to expanding
sustainability dimensions and achieving sustainable development goals.

c) The interrelations between institutions and policy making

To begin with, any policy aims at not just setting topical and fulfilling objectives but also
considers the context surrounding the policy directions, which, in turn, frames the ways to
achieve these objectives. In a general way, the role of the policy maker can be considered
as a requirement to develop the capital of the nation, and if ’in the past, the main focus was
on investment in physical capital, whereas, to- day, the emphasis has shifted towards
investment in human capital’ (Patuelli and Saviolli, 2016). Political actors and policymakers,
which develop and then communicate policies to the public, obviously expect the policy
measures to be implemented, followed and bringing sufficient results. Since a policy has
been a re-distribution of the existing resources (in particular, financial) according to the new
priorities, it has to attempt to minimise risks and stimulate the suitable (in the meaning of
suitable functioning) and even profitable patterns of behaviour.
Nevertheless, often the policy outcomes differ from the original objectives or require an
expanded or even changed time frame and resource base. There are various reasons for the
arising of barriers, and the characteristics of an institutional environment is one of the major
ones to be considered. To put in other words, policymaking is shaped by a variety of
institutional factors constituting a certain environment, which is directly or indirectly
approached by a policy. At the same time, institutions and institutional factors influence
policy implementations and outcomes by setting behaviour patterns and norms for decision
making. As marked by Patuelli and Saviolli (2016), ’in social contexts, institutions affect and
modify the outcome of a policy, and more in general a behaviour’.
To analyse how institutions affect policies and their outcomes, this research has deployed
the institutional approach and its concept of institutional environment. The institutional
environment consists of formal and informal institutions, as well as ‘the sum of the factors
that influence the formal and informal institutions of the region on the economy’ (Du, 2018, p.
1942). As Du (2018) showed in the review, the institutional environment includes legal
systems, government governance, economic and social environment. While the first two are
majorly based on formal rules, the latter is composed by both formal and informal norms.
Among the variety of factors, which constitute the institutional environment, one of the most
significant ones is social and cultural aspects, or socio-cultural factors. In a broad way,
cultural factors consist of such key elements as culture, language, religion, and education. It
is important to underline that some research differentiates between institutional and
socio-cultural fields on the basis of different effects produced by them. In contrast, our
approach follows an undressing of institutions as cultural structures in the first place (the

19
institutional theory); therefore, it does not seem prospectively to attempt to distinguish them
and separate institutions and culture.
The significance of legal and governance systems in framing digital implementations is
evident in the dataset. The overwhelming majority of papers refer to the existing legal
systems and governance on international, national, and local levels. Among various context
legal and governance factors, our analysis distinguishes the main two, which have the
largest coverage and attributed discussion of their role. These factors are, firstly, land
ownership regimes and, secondly, the relations among political and governance bodies on
different levels.
First of all, the land ownership regimes include rent and ownership legislation, networks and
power distribution among stakeholders, and availability of land as economic resource. The
existing system defines the rules for land ownership and rent, which includes pricing,
transition period (for example, period allowed for ownership), land status, and others. The
system creates a large impact on the agri-food sector, in particular farming, which is based
on land. The availability of lands for farming activities frames the scope and intensity of food
production. To specify, almost all the papers which focused on the farming step within the
supply chain (130) articulated the role of land ownership and rent factors.
The second factor refers to, firstly, the presence of local political and governance bodies,
their power interrelations and networks, and their place within governance structure on
different levels, from international to local. The research underlines the importance of
communication and exchange between policy making bodies or actors on international or
European level (for example, United Nations, European Commission, European Parliament
and others) and local governance bodies. Such a communication ensures the continuity of
policy implementations, as well as provides the policymakers with sufficient feedback. On
the contrary, the lack of engagement and coordination among governance bodies and
political institutions and of clear understanding of power relations among them inhibits policy
actions and applications. Moreover, some research discussed the influence of low degree of
power attributed to local political actors, which is a barrier for their active and effective
governance and monitoring of the applications. Although, this situation is more present in
papers, which study countries outside the EU.
However, among the variety of factors influencing the performance of digital applications in
the agri-food are also cultural factors, among which education and training are the most
covered ones in the dataset. A volume of papers discuss the importance of providing
educational and training activities with discreet purposes to various groups of actors and
stakeholders. One of the critical issues to address within learning and training activities is the
nature and characteristics of digitalisation. The context of an application of digital
technologies, in its turn, is allied with functional nodes and engaged actors. In other words,

20
the design of training activities should take into account primarily the group of actors to
address. The papers show that currently there is an observed lack of educational and
training support for actors, in particular for farmers and their communities, provided by
governance bodies. For example, while the Farm to Fork strategy appeals to support
different actors within food systems to develop new skills, it has been already criticised for
lack of investment in educational and learning activities. Moreover, introduction and
expansion of various educational activities can strengthen rural communities, development
of social and human capitals, which, in its turn, will contribute to social sustainability.
Naturally, interconnections between institutions and policymaking are not limited to social
and cultural factors. There are a large number of diverse factors, which constitute the
institutional environment, such as infrastructure, land ownership and regimes, sector’s
configuration and others, which are crucial for policy implementation and efficiency.
Although, many of these factors have already been presented in the research in one way or
another. Moreover, many of these factors are legally or physically detectable and, therefore,
accountable. In contrast, social and cultural factors are often related to informal or unwritten
traditions and norms, which are challenging to evaluate and include in a (policy) plan.
Nevertheless, the effect brought by these factors might be more significant compared to
other institutional factors. The institutional theory has already underlined the need to
investigate more the variety of informal institutions and their impacts on socio-economic
activities. In such a way, this research attempts to broaden the understanding of institutional
socio-cultural factors in the agricultural sector and their role for policy making.
While a deeper investigation of the digital technological applications at each node of a
supply chain is required, it seems more crucial to attempt for a holistic and systematic
approach to agri-food systems. Digital technologies have a potential for wider application
within various nodes of the supply chain, starting from farming provision to consumption.
Moreover, not only local technological applications but also its connection to other
applications along the supply chain will enhance its efficiency and continuity. An innovative
intervention at one stage of a process might influence the whole process.
While a policy is sort of a mechanism to reproduce an institution and its norms, at the same
time it is an intervention in the existing state of affairs, which, in turn, are not free from risks.
One of the ways to reduce the risks is to identify the policy objectives at the primary stage to
avoid the vagueness of policies and potential following spending on ‘often ineffectual and
poorly monitored programmes and projects’ (Farole et al., 2011, 1101). Also, a way to deal
with risks is to investigate deeper the context or the institutional environment of policy
implementation, for example, a decision to integrate a digital technology. Among legal
systems, governance factors, the socio-economic environment consists of a variety of
economic and socio-cultural factors, which shape the performance and effectiveness of the

21
implementation. For their part, the effectiveness of local implementations of the policy-driven
digitalisation will affect the overall achievement of sustainable development goals and
common ability to pursue sustainable development on the European level.

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