Food insecurity is still a challenge in some remote and mountainous areas in China. When studying the impact of climate variability on food production, we should pay even more attention to the rainfed area. This is because the larger part of agriculture is the rainfed one and climate variability has more negative impacts on the rainfed agriculture than on the irrigated one. The traditional dry farming practices based on the principle of storing as much rain in the soil as possible and making best use of soil water could not bridge the gap between the time that the corp needs water and the time that rain occurs, so its effects on enhancing food production under climate variability is limited. Combining artificial water supply from rainwater harvesting systems with the traditional dry farming practices is an innovation in water management in rainfed agriculture. Experiences in the recent two decades indicate that rainwater harvesting irrigation can well mitigate the drought caused by the climate variability and bring the rainfed agriculture to a new level.
The application of technology to strengthen the protection and development of national geographical indication agricultural products is a trend, and there have been many beneficial explorations. Daxing watermelon is one of the ten national geographical indication agricultural products in Beijing, and the product has been widely recognized. Its rich culture also has great appeal to consumers. However, in recent years, it has still faced the threat of counterfeit and shoddy products, causing losses to farmers and consumers. This study builds a traceability system based on blockchain technology for Daxing watermelon, displaying data on watermelon production, processing, transportation, and transactions, as well as corresponding cultural information to consumers, in order to establish consumer confidence in Daxing watermelon. Based on this, this study also explores the role that blockchain technology can play in protecting and developing Daxing watermelon, pointing out that there is still room for its application in traceability, optimizing the supply chain, reducing farmers' production costs, and cooperating with government regulatory departments.
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