AgriFood supply chain traceability: data sharing in a farm-to-fork case

Abstract

PurposeTraceability of food is of paramount importance to the increasingly sustainability-conscious consumers. Several tracking and tracing systems have been developed in the AgriFood sector in order to prove to the consumers the origins and processing of food products. Critical challenges in realizing food's traceability include cooperating with multiple actors on common data sharing standards and data models.Design/methodology/approachThis research applies a design science approach to showcase traceability that includes preharvest activities and conditions in a case study. The authors demonstrate how existing data sharing standards can be applied in combination with new data models suitable for capturing transparency information about plant production.FindingsTogether with existing studies on farm-to-fork transparency, our results demonstrate how to realize transparency from field to fork and enable producers to show a complete bill of sustainability.Originality/valueThe existing standards and data models address transparency challenges in AgriFood chains from the moment of harvest up to retail (farm-to-fork) relatively well, but not what happens before harvest. In order to address sustainability concerns, there is a need to collect data about production activities related to product quality and sustainability before harvesting and share it downstream the supply chain. The ability to gather data on sustainability practices such as reducing pesticide, herbicide, fertilizer and water use are crucial requirements for producers to market their produce as quality and sustainable products.

Digital transformation in food supply chains: an implementation framework

“…Security and safety Data privacy and security aspects apply while utilising emerging technologies from Industry 4.0. The ownership of the data, access control, data authentication and client privacy protection are double-edged swords (Aamer et al, 2021;Moysiadis et al, 2022;Weersink et al, 2018). Data privacy plays an important role, especially in public cloud or hybrid cloud applications.…”

“…Data and information sharing is necessary for FSCs, as it could be facilitated for reducing food wastage and improving performance (Kayikci et al , 2022). Furthermore, data/information sharing could be closely linked to traceability, addressing issues such as food security, safety and waste (Moysiadis et al , 2022).…”

“…Data privacy plays an important role, especially in public cloud or hybrid cloud applications. A data authorisation mechanism is needed to share the data or information only with authorised stakeholders within the FSC (Li et al , 2017; Moysiadis et al , 2022). For instance, the data generated from a real-time tracking and tracing platform for FSCs captures consumers’ IP addresses (Li et al , 2017), which might cause privacy issues such as personal geolocation leaks.…”

“…Interoperability is frequently mentioned in studies related to the use of technologies in FSCs, which can be understood as the ability of computer systems or software to exchange and make use of information (Thibaud et al , 2018; Frederico et al , 2020; Latino et al , 2022; Moysiadis et al , 2022). From a macro perspective, interoperability can be seen as the coordination or collaboration among different actors in the FSC.…”

“…In contrast, inter-system compatibility refers to the smooth communication of different systems by FSC's internal and external stakeholders (Irfan and Wang, 2019). Interestingly, the problem of intra-system compatibility with existing systems is rarely discussed (Moysiadis et al , 2022; Tsang et al , 2018; Zhang et al , 2017).…”