The Blockchain is Having a Positive Impact on Farmers Globally

Farmers have begun to see the positive impact of the use of technology such as blockchain in handling issues of supply chain management. Although farmers are often skeptical towards technology, more of them are embracing the blockchain. They love it for guaranteeing accountability in the supply chain.

The Blockchain Adoption is Global

Globally, growers are finding success by adopting the technology. One example is cane growers in Queensland, who track their cane movement in Australia. Another is the growing and tracking of organic rice in Cambodia and cocoa in Ghana. The blockchain offers farmers a way to track their produce from the field to the table.

There are organizations helping with the adoption of this technology globally. One of them is Olam Farming information System that operates in 21 nations globally. It has thus far been able to get 100, 000 small hold farmers into its ranks. The company has farmers in Asia, Africa, and South America. It has a system that will allow the easy access and information aggregation for users to understand farming communities that supply the ingredients.

The Real Potential

In the middle of 2017, AF Funder estimated that there was the potential for management software of about $213 million. This money would also go to the IoT startups because of growing interest from farmers. Most of the focus right now seems to be the creation of traceability solutions for farm produce. Small farmers, who wish to make the most out of everything that comes from their farms, have already adopted this technology.

However, the blockchain still has a lot of potential in the farming sector on a huge scale. For instance, Carrefour is already examining the blockchain technology. They have a project that has been tracking chicken supply since early this year.

Through this project, customers can trace a chicken right from the egg until it gets to their table. To do this, shoppers just need to scan a code on the packaging to get details on all stages of production. This will even include the feed it was given and where the meat was processed.

The program by Carrefour has only been used on chickens. However, they soon plan to expand it to products such as tomatoes, oranges, salmon, and hamburgers. The supermarket, which was once the second largest after Walmart, believes the blockchain tech for the food industry is effective.

The Potential

With the use of blockchain, it could help to reduce illegal harvesting and shipping fraud. A project in the Kerala region of India will ensure that goods come with an RFID tag. They will utilize IoT devices to monitor the delivery and transportation of milk, vegetables, and fish. All components of the supply chain are monitored and recorded using blockchain technology.

With such projects, taking part in illegal trade will become difficult and in some cases impossible. The cost of food fraud is estimated at about $40 billion a year. With just a small investment of a few hundred million, this trend could be drastically reversed.