Optimizing Cold Chain Logistics for Plateau Specialty Agricultural Products under the Company-Farmer Order Model

Abstract

Plateau specialty agricultural products are constrained by long transport distances, unstable temperature control, weak rural logistics infrastructure, and fragmented smallholder production. This paper reframes cold chain logistics under the company-farmer order model as an integrated problem of route optimization, temperature-risk control, and contract coordination. Based on a literature review and a case-based scenario reconstructed from a plateau agricultural supply chain, the study proposes a compact optimization framework that incorporates transport cost, delivery time, vehicle capacity, cold-chain loss, weather and road risk, and allowable temperature fluctuation. The scenario comparison indicates that optimized routing and digital temperature monitoring may reduce transport cost from 5,000 to 4,000 RMB per ton, shorten delivery time from 48 to 36 hours, reduce temperature-related loss from 10% to 5%, increase transport efficiency from 80% to 95%, and lower risk frequency from 15% to 8%. The results suggest that cold chain upgrading in plateau areas should not be treated as a purely technical routing problem. It requires coordinated investment in refrigerated infrastructure, information sharing between firms and farmers, incentive-compatible order contracts, and public support for rural logistics platforms. The paper contributes a policy-oriented analytical framework for improving agricultural supply-chain resilience in geographically disadvantaged plateau regions.