Increased market demand and expanded scales of production of fresh agricultural products by small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) have highlighted the challenge of funding sufficient infrastructure. Additional costs to improve the freshness of produce makes the optimal financial and operational policies different for these enterprises. On the basis of the characteristics of the fresh agricultural supply chain, this paper analyses the financing strategies adopted by SMEs and obtains optimal operational and financing strategies for SMEs in six different situations. The analysis shows that the optimal level of financing by SMEs is not only affected by the financing rate, but also negatively related to the freshness effort cost coefficient, and is positively related to the sensitivity coefficient of market freshness. Moreover, although the cost of improving the freshness level of the producte is only borne by the SME, the supply chain cannot maximise profit from the optimal financial strategies of SMEs. Shouldering the fresh effort cost also lessens the optimal financing requirement of the SME compared with that of the entire supply chain. The difference is affected by the fresh effort cost coefficient.

中文翻译：

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新鲜农产品供应链的最优融资与运营策略

中小型企业（SME）市场需求的增长和新鲜农产品的生产规模的扩大，凸显了为充足的基础设施提供资金的挑战。改善农产品新鲜度的额外成本使这些企业的最佳财务和运营政策有所不同。根据新鲜农业供应链的特点，分析了中小企业采取的融资策略，并在六种不同情况下获得了中小企业最优的运营和融资策略。分析表明，中小企业的最优融资水平不仅受融资率的影响，而且与新鲜度努力成本系数负相关，与市场新鲜度的敏感性系数正相关。此外，尽管提高产品新鲜度的成本仅由中小企业承担，但供应链无法从中小企业的最佳财务策略中获得最大的利润。与整个供应链相比，承担新的努力成本还降低了中小企业的最佳融资需求。差异受新鲜努力成本系数的影响。