Strategic Risk Management in Horticultural Value Chains: A Structured Conceptual Review and Framework for Resilience Through Agritech and AI

In horticulture, a delayed shipment or failed food-safety check can rapidly cut off market access, yet strategic risk management remains weakly developed. This paper examines how artificial intelligence (AI), agritech, and business model innovation can reduce uncertainty and strengthen resilience across horticultural value chains. Using a structured conceptual review, it integrates six literature streams: agricultural risk, supply-chain risk management, strategic and enterprise risk management, farming-system resilience, digital innovation and AI, and business model innovation. The synthesis connects risk exposure to five digital functions (sensing, predicting, verifying, coordinating, and deciding) to dynamic capabilities, business model and governance conditions, and resilience outcomes. It develops five connected propositions concerning the conversion of information into action, credible digital verification, adoption conditions, market-access resilience, and business-model-enabled shared capability. Market-access resilience is introduced as the capacity to maintain or restore verified quality, food-safety assurance, traceability, compliance, and buyer relationships during disruption. The propositions are theoretically derived and empirically informed, providing a foundation for further empirical validation, particularly of the complete market-access and business model relationships. The findings imply that digital technologies contribute to resilience only when supported by coordinated action, sound data governance, human oversight, and viable, inclusive delivery models.