Global and regional agri-food value chains feed societies and are an income source for hundreds of millions of farmers
around the world. They are also target areas for action to achieve a global sustainability transformation. Agri-food
chains are highly vulnerable in the context of multiple crises, including the global environmental crisis, geopoliti
cal fragmentation, armed conflicts and wars, and the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Measures to increase
chain resilience are widely discussed; however, some such measures contradict sustainability measures. While there
has been considerable research on the sustainability and resilience of agri-food chains, few studies have integrated
both perspectives or outlined potential synergies and trade-offs. Therefore, this interdisciplinary literature review
sketches possible contours for a synthesized research agenda on sustainability and resilience for agri-food chains
during multiple crises. We argue that such an agenda should include, amongst others,
• a more differentiated and critical perspective on the importance of value chain characteristics and developments
(e.g., power structures, capabilities, up- and downgrading, and the borders of chain internalities and externalities)
• a more comprehensive perspective that includes global and regional contexts and relations (e.g., whole-chain per
spectives that integrate agro-input supply)
• an actor-oriented approach that interrogates aspects of inequality, cost-sharing, and the potential benefits of
sustainability and resilience for different actors along a value chain (i.e., sustainability and resilience for whom?)