Abstract: Agricultural products generally have problems such as limited freshness period and high spoilage rates. To prolong the freshness period for staggered sales and ensure the quality of agricultural products, agricultural producers are embarking on investment in preservation technologies and facilities. With the input of freshness-keeping effort, producers often encounter financial constraints, hindering the expansion of production scale and the improvement of agricultural product quality. In response to this issue, governments have actively promoted bank agricultural credit financing (ACF) as a solution to assisting producers with limited access to capital. Meanwhile, trade credit financing (TCF) has become a common approach in agricultural supply chain finance (ASCF), allowing downstream retailers to provide capital to upstream producers who lack sufficient capital. Rural revitalization policies advocate securing fair returns for agricultural development, thereby compelling supply chain members to pay more attention to achieving input-output parity. However, producers are often in a disadvantaged position and tend to have vertical fairness concern, using retailers’ profits as a reference for decision-making. Furthermore, competition among retailers in an agricultural supply chain may lead to irrational decisions driven by horizontal fairness concern as they make profit comparisons. The impact of vertical and horizontal fairness concerns on decision-making and performance of agricultural supply chains is evident.
To our knowledge, there is still limited existing literature on the impact of vertical and horizontal fairness concern on financing strategies of producers within the context of a capital-constrained agricultural supply chain. Additionally, there has been inadequate attention given to the comparative analysis of vertical fairness concern and horizontal fairness concern. Based on this, this study focuses on an agricultural product supply chain consisting of a capital-constrained agricultural producer and two retailers. Agricultural credit financing (ACF) and trade credit financing (TCF) are introduced to explore the operation and financing strategies of the agricultural supply chain under different fairness situations. The following research issues are examined: (1)When both the ACF scheme and the TCF scheme are viable, which financing model is preferred by the producer, and what conditions need to be met for this choice? (2)How do the producer and the two retailers optimize their decisions and profits in the presence of vertical fairness concern and horizontal fairness concern? (3)How do vertical and horizontal fairness concerns enable the producer to adjust financing strategies? Does the adjustment vary depending on the product supplyifferent fairness situations？
To answer the above questions, a Stackelberg game model is developed with the two retailers as leaders and the producer as a follower. After obtaining equilibrium decision-making through backward induction, this study compares and analyzes the effects of the two financing schemes-ACF and TCF. To validate the analytical findings and gain further managerial insights, numerical studies are performed. Based on the model construction and numerical analysis, the conclusions drawn are as follows: Firstly, financing can facilitate the expansion of the agricultural product market. Although the interest rate of ACF is lower, the agricultural producer will be more inclined to choose the TCF scheme when the difference between the interest rates of ACF and TCF is within a specific threshold. However, when the difference exceeds the threshold, the producer tends to prefer the ACF scheme. Secondly, the vertical fairness concern of the producer can promote the income growth upstream of the agricultural supply chain. However, beyond a certain extent, it becomes detrimental to a profit increase. As long as there exists vertical fairness concern, it will reduce the retailers’ profits and the overall profit of the supply chain. In addition, the horizontal fairness concern of the retailer not only narrows the profit gap between supply chain members, but also provides higher-quality agricultural products to the market. Finally, both vertical fairness concern and horizontal fairness concern have an impact on the producer’s financing strategies, the strategy adjustment threshold diminishes in correspondence with the vertical and horizontal fairness concern coefficients. It is worth noting that the impact exerted by intrinsic fairness concern on the producer’s financing strategies shows a heightened degree.

Key words: agricultural supply chain, capital-constrained, freshness-keeping effort, vertical and horizontal fairness concerns, financing strategies

摘要： 针对资金约束下农产品生产者的融资问题,本文构建由单个农产品生产者和两个销售商组成的农产品供应链,考虑生产者为延长销售期投入保鲜努力,通过对比银行农业信贷融资和交易信用融资两种常见融资模式的实施效果,探讨存在生产者纵向公平关切和销售商横向公平关切影响下的农产品供应链运营和融资策略。研究发现:农产品生产者的融资策略受到融资利率和公平关切行为的双重影响。当交易信用融资利率与农业信贷融资利率的差距在一定限度内时,生产者更倾向于选择利率较高的交易信用融资,反之则会选择农业信贷融资;生产者的纵向公平关切一定程度上能够促进供应链上游增收,但超过某一限度反而不利于利润增加;相较于农业信贷融资,交易信用融资中销售商对于生产者公平关切的反应程度更弱;销售商的横向公平关切对生产者有利,但会导致自身与同级销售商的利润损失;生产者改变融资策略的临界值会随着纵向与横向公平关切系数的增加而减小。值得注意的是,生产者自身的公平关切对于其融资策略影响的程度更剧烈。

关键词: 农产品供应链, 资金约束, 保鲜努力, 纵向与横向公平关切, 融资策略