Analysis of agro-product trade research characteristics under global uncertainty: based on BERTopic model

doi:10.1016/j.jia.2026.04.002

Advanced Online Publication | Current Issue | Archive | Adv Search

Haiqing Shen^*, Xin Dai^*, Chunmiao Liu, Huishang Li^#

Institute of Agricultural Information, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science/Key Laboratory of Agricultural Big Data, Beijing 100081, China

Highlights

l First application of BERTopic to systematically map agro-product trade research under global uncertainty.

l Research hotspots exhibit strong synchronicity with major global events.

l Identification of 20 core themes and 7 macro-research directions revealing paradigm shifts from efficiency to resilience.

Abstract
References

Download: PDF in ScienceDirect
Export: BibTeX | EndNote (RIS)

摘要

在全球经济格局深刻变革与多重危机交织的背景下，农产品贸易正面临前所未有的不确定性。单边主义和保护主义的抬头、地缘政治冲突的升级，以及新冠疫情、气候危机等多重冲击，显著加剧了全球农产品贸易的系统性风险，使其从单一市场问题转变为涵盖经济、政治和环境维度的综合性治理议题。本研究基于2001年至2024年间Web of Science数据库收录的2702篇论文，运用BERTopic模型系统探究全球不确定性背景下农产品贸易研究的核心主题、结构关系及演化趋势。研究发现识别出20个核心主题，并进一步归纳为7个研究方向：非关税壁垒、供应链韧性、中国的角色与区域合作、粮食安全、非洲与巴西市场、气候变化与能源转型、社会福利与健康。结果表明，该领域具有高度多维性与跨学科特性；研究热点的演变与全球重大事件呈现显著同步性，研究范式已从效率优先转向韧性优先，从纯粹的经济分析转向对可持续性的综合评估。本研究为理解多重危机下农产品贸易的复杂机制提供了参考，并为后续政策制定与学术探索提供了启示。

Abstract

Against the backdrop of profound changes in the global economic landscape and the interweaving of multiple crises, agro-product trade is facing unprecedented uncertainties. The resurgence of unilateralism and protectionism, the escalation of geopolitical conflicts, as well as the multiple shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic, climate crisis and so on, have significantly exacerbated the systemic risks of global agro-product trade, transforming it from a single market issue to a comprehensive governance issue covering economic, political and environmental dimensions. Based on 2,702 papers from the Web of Science database published between 2001 and 2024, this study employs the BERTopic model to systematically explore the core themes, structural relationships and evolutionary trends of agro-product trade research in the context of global uncertainty. The study identifies 20 core themes, which are further categorized into 7 research directions: non-tariff barriers, supply chain resilience, China's role and regional cooperation, food security, African and Brazilian markets, climate change and energy transition and social welfare and health. The findings indicate that this field is highly multidimensional and interdisciplinary.. The evolution of research hotspots exhibits significant synchronicity with global major events, and the research paradigm has shifted from efficiency priority to resilience priority, and from purely economic analysis to a comprehensive assessment of sustainability. This study provides a reference for understanding the complex mechanisms of agro-product trade under multiple crises, and offers implications for subsequent policy formulation and academic exploration.

Keywords: agro-product trade global uncertainty BERTopic topic modelling

Online: 07 April 2026

Fund:

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (72073131), the Central Public Interest Scientific Institution Basal Research Fund, China (2025JKY014) and the Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Program of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS-ASTIP-2025-AII).

About author: Haiqing Shen, E-mail: kinbonshen@163.com; Xin Dai, E-mail: daixin@caas.cn; #Correspondence Huishang Li, E-mail: lihuishang@caas.cn *These authors contributed equally to this study.

	Service
	E-mail this article
	Add to citation manager
	E-mail Alert
	RSS
	Articles by authors

Cite this article:

Haiqing Shen, Xin Dai, Chunmiao Liu, Huishang Li. 2026. Analysis of agro-product trade research characteristics under global uncertainty: based on BERTopic model. Journal of Integrative Agriculture, Doi:10.1016/j.jia.2026.04.002

Abele S, Pillay M. 2007. Bacterial wilt and drought stresses in banana production and their impact on economic welfare in Uganda: Implications for banana research in east african highlands. Journal of Crop Improvement, 19, 173-191.

Abid I, Dhaoui A, Kaabia O, Tarchella S. 2023. Geopolitical risk on energy, agriculture, livestock, precious and industrial metals: New from a markov model. Resources Policy, 85, 11.

Acosta A. 2012. Measuring spatial transmission of white maize prices between South Africa and mozambique: An asymmetric error correction model approach. African Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, 7, 1-13.

Afesorgbor S K, Fiankor D D, Demena B A. 2024. Do regional trade agreements affect agri-food trade? Evidence from a meta-analysis. Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, 46, 737-759.

Alavijeh N K, Salehnia N. 2024. Climate change, renewable and non-renewable energy consumption and agricultural development in the middle east and north african countries. Environment Development and Sustainability, 26, 21125-21145.

Alexander P, Arneth A, Henry R, Maire J, Rabin S, Rounsevell M D A. 2023. High energy and fertilizer prices are more damaging than food export curtailment from Ukraine and Russia for food prices, health and the environment. Nature Food, 4, 84-95.

Baldos U L C, Hertel T W. 2015. The role of international trade in managing food security risks from climate change. Food Security, 7, 275-290.

Bao X H, Qiu L D. 2010. Do technical barriers to trade promote or restrict trade? Evidence from China. Asia-Pacific Journal of Accounting & Economics, 17, 253-278.

Basso M F, Neves M F, Grossi-de-Sa M F. 2024. Agriculture evolution, sustainability and trends, focusing on Brazilian agribusiness: A review. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, 7, 18.

Brown M E, Carr E R, Grace K L, Wiebe K, Funk C C, Attavanich W, Backlund P, Buja L. 2017. Do markets and trade help or hurt the global food system adapt to climate change? Food Policy, 68, 154-159.

Bruneau J, Ugochukwu A I. 2021. Consumer welfare of country-of-origin labelling and traceability policies. Agronomy-Basel, 11, 16.

Cardwell R, Ghazalian P L. 2020. COVID-19 and international food assistance: Policy proposals to keep food flowing. World Development, 135, 4.

Castillo-Díaz F J, Belmonte-Ureña L J, López-Serrano M J, Camacho-Ferre F. 2023. Assessment of the sustainability of the European agri-food sector in the context of the circular economy. Sustainable Production and Consumption, 40, 398-411.

Chen C L, Yang J, Findlay C. 2008. Measuring the effect of food safety standards on China's agricultural exports. Review of World Economics, 144, 83-106.

Chen Z Y, Zhao L T, Cheng L, Qiu R X. 2025. How does China respond to the carbon border adjustment mechanism? An approach of global trade analysis. Energy Policy, 198, 18.

Cheng N F L, Hasanov A S, Poon W C, Bouri E. 2023. The US-China trade war and the volatility linkages between energy and agricultural commodities. Energy Economics, 120, 17.

Cong S F, Chin L, Allayarov P. 2023. Exploring the development of agricultural trade between China and ASEAN under the RCEP: A SWOT analysis. China and Wto Review, 9, 11-34.

Culas R J, Timsina K P. 2019. Impacts of China-australia free trade agreement on Australian agriproducts trade. Australasian Agribusiness Review, 27, 128-148.

de Raymond A B, Alpha A, Ben-Ari T, Daviron B, Nesme T, Tétart G. 2021. Systemic risk and food security. Emerging trends and future avenues for research. Global Food Security-Agriculture Policy Economics and Environment, 29, 9.

Deaton B J, Deaton B J. 2021. Food security and canada's agricultural system challenged by COVID-19: One year later. Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics-Revue Canadienne D Agroeconomie, 69, 161-166.

Disdier A C, Fontagné L, Mimouni M. 2008. The impact of regulations on agricultural trade: Evidence from the SPS and TBT agreements. American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 90, 336-350.

Egger R, Yu J N. 2022. A topic modeling comparison between LDA, NMF, Top2Vec, and BERTopic to demystify twitter posts. Frontiers in Sociology, 7, 16.

Elleby C, Domínguez I P, Adenauer M, Genovese G. 2020. Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global agricultural markets. Environmental & Resource Economics, 76, 1067-1079.

García J L, Perdigones A, Benavente R M, Mazarrón F R. 2022. Influence of the new energy context on the Spanish agri-food industry. Agronomy-Basel, 12, 13.

Gavalas D. 2025. Supply chain resilience in the face of uncertainty:A study of wheat trade and supply chain optimization. Acta Logistica, 12, 103-115.

Götz L, Glauben T, Brümmer B. 2013. Wheat export restrictions and domestic market effects in Russia and Ukraine during the food crisis. Food Policy, 38, 214-226.

Grytz V K, Guero I R. 2023. The use of international trade mechanisms by the Brazilian agribusiness. Global Trade and Customs Journal, 18, 21-30.

Gurbuz I B, Ozkan G. 2021. Will agriculture beat the odds against COVID-19? The COVID-19 outbreak and its effect on agricultural supply in turkey. New Medit, 20, 15-25.

Lehtonen M. 2011. Social sustainability of the Brazilian bioethanol: Power relations in a centre-periphery perspective. Biomass & Bioenergy, 35, 2425-2434.

Li J D, Li Z, Shi Z L, Geng H J. 2024. Examining the dynamic and nonlinear impacts of public health events on the resilience of food supply chain: Evidence from China. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, 8, 18.

Li T, Cui L Z, Wu Y, Pandey R, Liu H D, Dong J F, Wang W J, Xu Z H, Song X F, Hao Y B, Cui X Y, Du J Q, Zhang X F, Wang Y F. 2025. Unveiling and advancing grassland degradation research using a BERTopic modelling approach. Journal of Integrative Agriculture, 24, 949-965.

Lin F Q, Li X C, Jia N Y, Feng F, Huang H, Huang J X, Fan S G, Ciais P, Song X P. 2023. The impact of Russia-Ukraine conflict on global food security. Global Food Security-Agriculture Policy Economics and Environment, 36, 7.

McVey D S, Drolet B S, Ruder M G, Wilson W C, Nayduch D, Pfannenstiel R, Cohnstaedt L W, MacLachlan N J, Gay C G. 2015. Orbiviruses: A North American perspective. Vector-Borne and Zoonotic Diseases, 15, 335-338.

Mueller V, Grépin K A, Rabbani A, Navia B, Ngunjiri A S W, Wu N. 2022. Food insecurity and COVID-19 risk in low and middle income countries. Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, 44, 92-109.

Osiac L R, Cofré C, Pizarro T, Mansilla C, Herrera C A, Burrows J, Castillo C. 2017. Using evidence-informed policies to tackle overweight and obesity in Chile. Revista Panamericana De Salud Publica-Pan American Journal of Public Health, 41, 5.

Peña-Sánchez A R, Ruiz-Chico J, Jiménez-García M, Pérez-Peña M D. 2025. The agri-food industry in the Spanish regions: Potentialities and opportunities in the region of Andalusia. Sage Open, 15, 16.

Piketty M G, Weissleder L, de Souza H M, Batalha M O, Adenäuer M, Becker A. 2009. Assessing agricultural trade policies options with the European union: A Brazilian perspective. Agricultural Economics, 40, 447-457.

Santeramo F G, Lamonaca E. 2019. The effects of non-tariff measures on agri-food trade: A review and meta-analysis of empirical evidence. Journal of Agricultural Economics, 70, 595-617.

Sayed A, Auret C. 2020. Volatility transmission in the South African white maize futures market. Eurasian Economic Review, 10, 71-88.

Smit B, Cai Y L. 1996. Climate change and agriculture in China. Global Environmental Change-Human and Policy Dimensions, 6, 205-214.

Soltanizadeh A, Moosavi S N, Najafi B. 2024. Economic review of the tariff liberalization of the import of wood and wood products: Evidence from a developing country. Heliyon, 10, 11.

Szczepaniak I, Szajner P. 2022. Challenges of energy management in the food industry in Poland in the context of the objectives of the European green deal and the "farm to fork" strategy. Energies, 15, 17.

Taylor J E, Naude A Y, Jesurun-Clements N. 2010. Does agricultural trade liberalization reduce rural welfare in less developed countries? The case of CAFTA. Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, 32, 95-116.

Thow A M, Hawkes C. 2009. The implications of trade liberalization for diet and health: A case study from central America. Globalization and Health, 5, 15.

Vasan A, Bedard B G. 2019. Global food security in the 21st century-resilience of the food supply. Cereal Foods World, 64, 6.

Wang C, Chen B, Song Y, Wang X Y. 2025. Sino-US relations, climate policy uncertainty and rare earth prices. Energy, 327, 17.

Winchester N, Rau M L, Goetz C, Larue B, Otsuki T, Shutes K, Wieck C, Burnquist H L, de Souza M J P, de Faria R N. 2012. The impact of regulatory heterogeneity on agri-food trade. World Economy, 35, 973-993.

[1]	Shuangxi Zhang, Xinlin Wei, Hejing Shen, Qinhu Wang, Yi Qiang, Langjun Cui, Hongxing Xu, Yuyan An, Meixiang Zhang. *Simultaneously enhancing plant growth and immunity through the application of engineered Bacillus subtilis* expressing a microbial pattern**[J]. >Journal of Integrative Agriculture, 2026, 25(5): 0-.
[2]	Jie Liu, Jie Zhang, Huijuan Yan, Tuyong Yi, Won Bo Shim, Zehua Zhou. **FvVam6 is associated with fungal development and fumonisin biosynthesis via vacuole morphology regulation in Fusarium verticillioides** [J]. >Journal of Integrative Agriculture, 2026, 25(5): 0-.
[3]	Saisai Wu, Shuqing Han, Jing Zhang, Guodong Cheng, Yali Wang, Kai Zhang, Mingming Han, Jianzhai Wu. Multi-scale keypoints detection and motion features extraction in dairy cows using ResNet101-ASPP network[J]. >Journal of Integrative Agriculture, 2026, 25(5): 0-.
[4]	Yijun Wang, Jinhao Han, Tenglong Zhang, Mengjia Sun, Hongyu Ren, Cunyao Bo, Yuqing Diao, Xin Ma, Hongwei Wang, Xiaoqian Wang. *Identification and fine mapping of a major QTL, qGPC4D, for grain protein content using wheat–Aegilops* tauschii introgression lines**[J]. >Journal of Integrative Agriculture, 2026, 25(5): 0-.
[5]	Zhenbang Zhu, Zhengqin Ye, Wenqiang Wang, Yanhua Li, Zhe Sun, Xiuling Yu, Kegong Tian, Xiangdong Li. A rescued virus from the infectious clone of a PRRSV NADC34-like strain exhibits high pathogenicity for nursery pigs[J]. >Journal of Integrative Agriculture, 2026, 25(5): 0-.
[6]	Xin Zhang, Jidong Zhang, Yunling Peng, Xun Yu, Lirong Lu, Yadong Liu, Yang Song, Dameng Yin, Shaogeng Zhao, Hongwu Wang, Xiuliang Jin, Jun Zheng. QTL mapping of maize plant height based on a population of doubled haploid lines using UAV LiDAR high-throughput phenotyping data[J]. >Journal of Integrative Agriculture, 2026, 25(5): 0-.
[7]	Chenyu Li, Zumuremu Tuerxun, Yang Yang, Xiaorong Li, Fengjiao Hui, Juan Li, Zhigang Liu, Guo Chen, Darun Cai, Hui Zhang, Xunji Chen, Shuangxia Jin, Bo Li. *Application of an endogenous pGhαGloA* promoter in CRISPR/Cas12a system for efficient genome editing to creat glandless cotton germplasm**[J]. >Journal of Integrative Agriculture, 2026, 25(5): 0-.
[8]	Mengyao Zhang, Hongli Jin, Cuicui Jiao, Yuanyuan Zhang, Yujie Bai, Zhiyuan Gong, Pei Huang, Haili Zhang, Yuanyuan Li, Hualei Wang. A candidate tick-borne encephalitis virus vaccine based on virus-like particles induces specific cellular and humoral immunity in mice[J]. >Journal of Integrative Agriculture, 2026, 25(5): 0-.
[9]	Mengsi Zhang, Mingming Yang, Xiaoxue Zhang, Shuying Li, Shuaiwu Wang, Alex Muremi Fulano, Yongting Meng, Xihui Shen, Lili Huang, Yao Wang. Two-Component Signaling System RegAB Represses Pseudomonas syringae pv. actinidiae T3SS by Directly Binding to the promoter of hrpRS[J]. >Journal of Integrative Agriculture, 2026, 25(5): 0-.
[10]	Jiyu Zhao, Xudong Sun, Yuqi Xue, Alam Sher, Jiayu Ran, Peng Liu, Bin Zhao, Baizhao Ren, Ningning Yu, Hao Ren, Jiwang Zhang. Optimizing nitrogen management for grain yield and nitrogen use efficiency in summer maize via coordinating the N supply–demand balance[J]. >Journal of Integrative Agriculture, 2026, 25(5): 0-.
[11]	Renxu Chang, Yuanyuan Chen, Xinyi Xu, Hongdou Jia, John Mauck, Juan J. Loor, Yehoshav A. Ben Meir, Qiushi Xu, Xudong Sun, Chuang Xu. Free fatty acids induce apoptosis in mammary epithelial cells from ketotic dairy cows via endoplasmic reticulum stress[J]. >Journal of Integrative Agriculture, 2026, 25(5): 0-.
[12]	Yeon Ju An, Min Young Kim, Sungup Kim, Jeongeun Lee, Sang Woo Kim, Jung In Kim, Eunyoung Oh, Heungsu Lee, Kwang-Soo Cho, Seung-Hyun Kim, Myoung Hee Lee, Eunsoo Lee. *QTL mapping and allele stacking for enhanced lignan content in sesame (Sesamum* indicum L.) using genotyping-by-sequencing**[J]. >Journal of Integrative Agriculture, 2026, 25(5): 0-.
[13]	Jingui Wei, Qiang Chai, Wen Yin, Yao Guo, Zhilong Fan, Falong Hu, Qiming Wang, Shoufa Mao. Mixed cropping green manure can simultaneously improve nutrition production and quality of spring wheat grain under reduced chemical nitrogen supply[J]. >Journal of Integrative Agriculture, 2026, 25(5): 0-.
[14]	Ying Liu, Jiangyao Fu, Haotian Chen, Yajun Zhang, Siyu Li, Kuanyu Zhu, Yunji Xu, Weilu Wang, Junfei Gu, Hao Zhang, Zhiqin Wang, Lijun Liu, Jianhua Zhang, Weiyang Zhang, Jianchang Yang. Cytokinins redistributing drives nitrogen remobilization from source to sink in wheat under moderate water limitation during grain filling[J]. >Journal of Integrative Agriculture, 2026, 25(5): 0-.
[15]	Qian Tang, Jianhong Ren, Xinru Zhang, Cai Wu, Yarong Zhang, Dahong Bian, Guangzhou Liu, Yanhong Cui, Xiong Du, Chuang Wang, Zhen Gao. Plant growth retardant increases nitrogen utilization efficiency and harvest index in maize by optimizing Plant Horizontal-Vertical Ratio and vascular bundles morphology[J]. >Journal of Integrative Agriculture, 2026, 25(5): 0-.

No Suggested Reading articles found!

Viewed

Full text

Abstract

Cited

Shared

Discussed

Highlights

Cite this article:

About JIA

Editorial board

For authors