7  Model boundaries

7.1 Beef supply chain

In the model, each “agent” represents a type of food system participant—such as farms, food businesses, or City agencies—with distinct roles, constraints, decision rules, and characteristics. We refer to these as supply chain stakeholders, each of which has different types of characteristics. For example, a farm can have one or more of the following characteristics: small, certified organic, M/WBE operators.

7.2 Supply Chain Stakeholder Types

Producer

Slaughter

Harvester/Processor

Secondary Processor

Auction

Wholesaler (Distributor)
Businesses that sell a product made by someone else. They can sell items from various stages in the supply chain.

NYC Agency
A New York City agency that purchases processed bean products from various suppliers.

Commodity and Differentiated Markets
Commodity markets (domestic or export) have effectively unlimited supply and demand and typically purchase at the lowest available price. They do not pay premiums for value characteristics (such as organic certification). Differentiated markets have more limited demand but often pay higher prices than commodity markets, reflecting preferences for specific product or business characteristics.

Out-of-State-Supply Beef Pathway

Contract Information Pathway

7.3 Causal loop diagram

Coming soon…