Future prospectives in plantain agro-chain by foresight-by-scenarios and Delphi analysis

Purpose This paper aims to identify future scenarios and convergent technologies regarding the plantain chain in the region of Quindío, Colombia. It proposes the definition of key variables, convergent technologies, future objectives, future scenarios and hypotheses based on stakeholders’ and experts’ opinions collected through questionnaires, surveys and workshops. Design/methodology/approach The present analysis seeks to identify and anticipate the future routes for the improvement of scientific, technological, innovative and skills management of the plantain agroindustrial chain in the region of Quindío, Colombia using the foresight-by-scenarios and, Delphi methodologies and finally validating the results with artificial intelligence code and natural language processing. Findings After the analysis of 100 initial variables, the results suggested the identification of five key variables defined by the stakeholders and matrix-based multiplication applied to a classification (MICMAC) analysis such as “weather,” “financing and economy,” “grouping and associativity,” “crop” and “territorial planning and raw material.” Moreover, the definition of four future objectives along with the matrix of alliances and conflicts, tactics, objectives and recommendations (MACTOR) analysis suggested scenarios according to the probability. The most possible, probable and desirable scenario, was the cooccurrence of the five proposed hypotheses. Furthermore, the Delphi analysis allowed us to define nine subgroups from 116 subtopics including: “plantain varieties,” “plantain agroindustry,” “waste use” and “crop,” among others. Research limitations/implications Due to the specificity of the analyzed agro-chain, the study only encompasses the plantain and banana sectors. However, the implications are related to the generation of projects in the selected technologies. Practical implications This paper includes implications for the development of prospective studies combining two or more different methodologies such as foresight-by-scenarios and Delphi method at the same time and further comparing the results with artificial intelligence analysis. Social implications The generation of public policies in the sector and input for governmental analysis and tools for decision-making with a well-grounded, systematic and rational point of view. Originality/value This work describes for the first time, the implementation of the Delphi method regarding an important agroindustry sector such as plantain and banana prospective study. Furthermore, it explains the alignment of two methodologies; foresight-by-scenarios and the Delphi method related to the sectorial approaches, and convergent technologies and innovations, respectively. Moreover, a complementary bibliometric analysis with global terms related to the plantain or banana agroindustry was also included. In a novel way, we also applied an artificial intelligence code using Python software to contrast the results previously obtained in the foresight-by-scenarios method.