Integrated Economic Efficiency and Vulnerability of Chu-Mango Value Chain in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam

The main purpose of this study is to identify the allocation of cost, revenue, and net profit of stakeholders in marketing channels, identify vulnerable actors, and suggest policies for the sustainability of the Chu-mango value chain. This study employed value chain analysis to analyze the integrated economic efficiency of the Chu-mango value chain in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam. A total of 404 observations were collected from farmers, cooperatives, collectors, wholesalers, local retailers, export enterprises, processing firms, and supermarkets/fruit shops. The integrated economic efficiency of the Chu-mango value chain amounts to a revenue of USD 530.4 million and a net profit of USD 54.3 million. The export channels provide a revenue of USD 135.1 million and a net profit of USD 14.1 million while the domestic channels provide a revenue of USD 395.3 million and a net profit of USD 40.2 million. The findings show that farmers are the most vulnerable actors in the chain in terms of small-scale and low mango quality. This study suggests three policy initiatives: quality improvement, technological progress, and benefit re-distribution. The findings of this study contribute to the literature on value chain analysis for other tropical fruits and vegetables, and confirm the role of the value chain approach in policymaking

Agri-Food Value Chain Performance during the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Empirical Study of Chu-mango Business Linkages in Dong Thap, Vietnam

This study aims to identify important factors that directly influence value chain performance (quality, responsiveness, flexibility and efficiency), which are explained by value chain integration (collaboration, commitment, coordination and joint decision-making) in the case of unexpected risk (the COVID-19 pandemic). This study contributes to maintaining the business linkage model among farmers – cooperatives – enterprises in the caseof the COVID-19 pandemic and quickly recovering after the COVID-19 pandemic. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used for data analysis following an iterative process based on theoretical and empirical analyses toobtain a structural model fit and test the research hypothesis. The findings indicate that the VCI positively influenced the VCP of Chu-mango business linkages at the 1% significance level through coordination (Beta = 0.345;construct reliability (CR) = 3.272), collaboration (Beta = 0.289; CR = 3.128), and joint decision-making (Beta = 0.324; CR = 3.245). This study provides empirical data on the relationship between VCI and VCP through the Chu -mango value chain in Dong Thap Province during the COVID-19 pandemic to raise awareness from stakeholders and encourage value chain thinking to improve performance. This result may pave the way for relevant policymakers to look for policies and strategies for better inclusiveness of stakeholders to show the importance of the VCI in improving the performance. Moreover, the study is an empirical case contributing to the agribusiness value chain in a developing country; it applies the agribusiness value chain of the tropical fruit domain and can be used for otheragricultural products in other cases of unexpected risks

Current situation of stakeholders’ characteristics in Chu-mango supply chain

The paper approached value chain analysis methodology to identify the flow of information and activities between direct and indirect actors at every channel in the supply chain. A simple random technique was used to select 750 sampling observations for the Chu-mango value analysis. The findings indicated 71% of farmers sell their products to collectors, and 18.8% of mango volume is sold to wholesalers. A further 9.2% sell to cooperatives, and a tiny minority (1%) is sold to local retailers. The main role of cooperative and farmer group share farming techniques is to control agrochemical use in the production process of VietGAP, GlobalGAP, traceability code, and providing information on market opportunities to members. Most of collector transacts with farmers and wholesalers are not contractual agreements that are based on a good business relationship and a responsibility to comply with the supply. Wholesaler is pivotal trader in both the output and input partners of actors in the value chain at the regional and national levels. The wholesaler also plays the role of a fresh mango exporter to the Chinese market. The transaction takes place in cash for channel 2, bank transfer for channel 3, and both for channel 4. Processing firms play an essential role in the consumption of Chu-mango grades 3 and 4 of farmers and create value-added products for consumers. However, the percentage of Chumango in exporting enterprises only accounts for a modest proportion of companies’ business operations. Most of fresh mango export enterprises must invest in cool sorting systems, packing factories, and vapor heat treatment factories to ensure the tested fresh fruit before exporting. markets for mango are very promising when Vietnam joins trade agreements such as comprehensive and progressive agreement for the trans-Pacific partnership (CPTPP), the European Union Vietnam free trade agreement (EVFTA), and the Asean economic community (AEC). Most import taxes of partners are zero for Vietnamese mangoes and mango products

Cost Structure and Comparative Advantage of Export Supply Chain of Chu-Mango in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam

This study aims at identifying the production cost structure of the main actors in the Chu-mango supply chain at the market price, and the comparative advantage of the export supply chain at the social price. The comparative advantage of the Chu-mango trade system is measured by the domestic resource cost per shadow exchange rate (DRC/SER ratio) based on a systematic supply chain management approach. It is based on 603 observations among main actors in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam. The results indicate that the export supply chain of Chu-mango in the Mekong Delta has three main channels. The total production cost of export channel 1 triples that of export channels 2 and 3. The main reason for this disparity is Chu-mango grade 1 and high test and transport costs (airplane), whereas channel 2 is mango grades 3 and 4 (shipping line), and channel 3 is mango grade 2 (roadway). The result was three export channels of the Chu-mango trade system to obtain EE with a DRC/SER ratio of less than one. In export channel 1, the DRC/SER ratios are 0.52, 0.53, and 0.49 for seasons 1, 2, and 3, respectively. In export channel 2, these numbers were 0.66, 0.67, and 0.62 for seasons 1, 2, and 3, respectively. In export channel 3, the DRC/SER ratios are 0.49, 0.53, and 0.42 for seasons 1, 2, and 3, respectively. Policymakers and governments need export business incentives based on better exploitation of the comparative advantage to contribute to the sustainable development and economic growth of Chu-mango. The findings of this study contribute to the literature on comparative advantage analysis of export supply chains for other tropical fruits and vegetables, and confirm that the right value of the Ricardian model in international trade is valid and applicable to the real world

Ultra-deep massively parallel sequencing with unique molecular identifier tagging achieves comparable performance to droplet digital PCR for detection and quantification of circulating tumor DNA from lung cancer patients

The identification and quantification of actionable mutations are of critical importance for effective genotype-directed therapies, prognosis and drug response monitoring in patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Although tumor tissue biopsy remains the gold standard for diagnosis of NSCLC, the analysis of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) in plasma, known as liquid biopsy, has recently emerged as an alternative and noninvasive approach for exploring tumor genetic constitution. In this study, we developed a protocol for liquid biopsy using ultra-deep massively parallel sequencing (MPS) with unique molecular identifier tagging and evaluated its performance for the identification and quantification of tumor-derived mutations from plasma of patients with advanced NSCLC. Paired plasma and tumor tissue samples were used to evaluate mutation profiles detected by ultra-deep MPS, which showed 87.5% concordance. Cross-platform comparison with droplet digital PCR demonstrated comparable detection performance (91.4% concordance, Cohen's kappa coefficient of 0.85 with 95% CI = 0.72-0.97) and great reliability in quantification of mutation allele frequency (Intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.96 with 95% CI = 0.90-0.98). Our results highlight the potential application of liquid biopsy using ultra-deep MPS as a routine assay in clinical practice for both detection and quantification of actionable mutation landscape in NSCLC patients

Multimodal analysis of methylomics and fragmentomics in plasma cell-free DNA for multi-cancer early detection and localization

Despite their promise, circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA)-based assays for multi-cancer early detection face challenges in test performance, due mostly to the limited abundance of ctDNA and its inherent variability. To address these challenges, published assays to date demanded a very high-depth sequencing, resulting in an elevated price of test. Herein, we developed a multimodal assay called SPOT-MAS (screening for the presence of tumor by methylation and size) to simultaneously profile methylomics, fragmentomics, copy number, and end motifs in a single workflow using targeted and shallow genome-wide sequencing (~0.55×) of cell-free DNA. We applied SPOT-MAS to 738 non-metastatic patients with breast, colorectal, gastric, lung, and liver cancer, and 1550 healthy controls. We then employed machine learning to extract multiple cancer and tissue-specific signatures for detecting and locating cancer. SPOT-MAS successfully detected the five cancer types with a sensitivity of 72.4% at 97.0% specificity. The sensitivities for detecting early-stage cancers were 73.9% and 62.3% for stages I and II, respectively, increasing to 88.3% for non-metastatic stage IIIA. For tumor-of-origin, our assay achieved an accuracy of 0.7. Our study demonstrates comparable performance to other ctDNA-based assays while requiring significantly lower sequencing depth, making it economically feasible for population-wide screening