Saskia van Gendt: Why AI is Key to Resilient Agriculture

Saskia van Gendt, Blue Yonder’s Chief Sustainability Officer. Image: BizClik

Blue Yonder CSO Saskia van Gendt discusses how unified data and AI safeguard global agricultural supply chains against severe climate and social media disruptions.

From extreme weather to viral social media phenomena like Dubai chocolate, global agricultural supply chains are facing unprecedented volatility.

As climate change acts as a severe threat multiplier, traditional logistics models are struggling to cope with sudden demand spikes and fluctuating crop yields.

In this exclusive Q&A, Supply Chain Digital spoke with Saskia van Gendt, Chief Sustainability Officer at Blue Yonder, about the acute vulnerabilities within farm-to-fork networks.

With nearly two decades of sustainability expertise, she explains why organisations must move away from siloed legacy systems and adopt end-to-end visibility, unified data platforms, and agentic AI to build true operational resilience.

In today’s hyper-volatile global climate, supply chains must be able to react to major shocks within minutes to hours rather than days or weeks

Saskia van Gendt, Chief Sustainability Officer at Blue Yonder

How are social media trends, like Dubai chocolate, impacting supply chain integrity?

Viral social media trends such as Dubai chocolate can create sudden spikes in global demand that move significantly faster than agricultural production can respond. In this case, demand for pistachios, a vital ingredient in the product, skyrocketed overnight, putting significant pressure on an already constrained supply chain.

The Dubai chocolate trend has led to an international shortage for pistachio kernels, which are largely grown in either the US or Iran. In a year, prices have surged from US$7.65 to US$10.30 per pound, while Iran’s pistachio exports to the UAE rose by 40% in the six months to March 2025 when compared to the previous year.

When traditional supply chains struggle to scale and meet the demand spikes driven by social media trends it can lead to ingredient shortages and price volatility as manufacturers rush to capitalise on trends, and supply integrity risks. These pressures create supply chain bottlenecks, which can compromise product quality and consumer trust.

How can end-to-end visibility help organisations anticipate disruptions and mitigate risk?

End-to-end visibility, unified data and practical AI enable supply chain leaders and teams to make good decisions quickly and at scale. At Blue Yonder, we enable companies to integrate planning, sourcing and execution functions so they can reduce decision fatigue, respond rapidly to disruptions and manage the business with greater control.

Rather than operating in disconnected silos, businesses can replace guesswork with real-time, data-driven insights. This helps organisations move from reacting to disruption after it happens to proactively managing risk before it escalates.

By optimising logistics and minimising food waste, companies within the agriculture supply chain can stabilise yields from farm-to-fork and ensure resilient, cost-effective distribution despite climate and market disruptions.

Viral social media trends such as Dubai chocolate can create sudden spikes in global demand that move significantly faster than agricultural production can respond

Saskia van Gendt, Chief Sustainability Officer at Blue Yonder

The Dubai Chocolate trend has put pressure on pistachio supply chains (Credit: Getty)

What factors can impact sourcing pistachios and other agricultural products?

Agricultural supply chains are increasingly exposed to multiple overlapping risks. For example, extreme weather events, geopolitical instability and fertiliser availability can all affect production, yields and distribution.

A Super El Niño, combined with the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, could have a multiplier effect on global food supply chains. Sourcing for pistachios, as well as wheat, rice, and corn, is already under immense pressure due to reduced fertiliser availability during the planting season. This will result in near-term shortages and price increases, along with a prolonged impact, since these crops are used as animal feed and in processed foods.

Beyond crop yields, El Niño threatens the physical movement of goods. While intense rainfall and flooding are expected to delay transit and inflate shipping costs in some regions, severe droughts will restrict waterways in others - much like the low water levels that restricted passage through the Panama Canal during the 2023–2024 El Niño cycle. Meanwhile, the cocoa industry, already vulnerable from climate shifts and disease, faces acute disruption as West Africa braces for soaring temperatures and diminished rainfall.

What is the impact of these shortages on consumers?

It usually takes several months for crop disruptions to translate into higher retail food prices, but we may experience earlier cost increases or combined cost increases due to fertiliser shortages. The World Economic Forum predicts that current fertiliser shortages will take six months to a year to affect food supply.

Saskia discusses how consumer trends are driving product shortages. Credit: BizClik

How fast do supply chains need to react to shocks like these? How can they achieve this?

In today’s hyper-volatile global climate, supply chains must be able to react to major shocks within minutes to hours rather than days or weeks. A week of indecision translates directly to lost revenue, broken contracts and eroded customer trust.

Blue Yonder’s 2026 Supply Chain Compass Report, which surveyed approximately 700 global supply chain leaders, found that enterprises with interconnected operations and integrated data ecosystems are uniquely positioned to absorb shocks and overcome disruption.

The research found that unified data platforms have ascended to become the most widely adopted new technology across the global supply chain landscape; as a result, 51% of organisations have already deployed a unified data platform. In an increasingly disruptive world, organisations that embrace end-to-end connectivity by combining predictive insight with automated, real-time visibility can accelerate their decision-making velocity exponentially.

Supply chains also need to move beyond the constraints of slow, siloed legacy systems and embrace agentic AI solutions that make them more adaptive and resilient. As agentic AI comes online and begins to deliver tangible productivity and resilience benefits, the ability to grant these AI agents greater scope and executive influence will depend on the comprehensiveness and connectivity of the underlying data layer. Organisations that break down their operational silos today will set the benchmark for a supply chain future where speed and adaptability mean survival.

Blue Yonder’s 2026 Supply Chain Compass Report

• Respondents had an average score of 2.9/5 when discussing how optimistic they are about the future of their supply chain
• 35% of respondents said they are prioritising improving efficiency and productivity across their supply chain
• 24% of respondents are focusing on becoming more resilient
• 24% of respondents are concerned about environmental events as supply chain disruptors

In 2025, Japan saw matcha shortages due to demand (Credit: Unsplash)

What can supply chain leaders learn from cocoa and pistachio shortages amid climate change?

Almost every year, there is a major supply chain disruption that requires companies to look at their supply chains, whether that’s drought reducing water levels in the Panama Canal, the Evergreen container ship blocking the Suez Canal, the recent events with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz or viral social media trends that cause shortages. Businesses are starting to understand that climate change, as well as geopolitics, are mutually reinforcing threat multipliers and that disruptions will continue, so they need to develop strategies to make them more resilient.

Supply chain leaders are being asked to make more decisions, more frequently and with less time available. Proactive planning and enhanced supply chain visibility will be key to navigating the challenges ahead. Companies that sense risk early and take proactive, coordinated action across their supply chain network will pull ahead of their competitors — and stay there. The question is no longer whether to make that shift, but how quickly it can be done.