SmartAgriChain: A Blockchain Based Solution for Agri-food Certification and Supply Chain Management

Abstract

Management of certification issuance and product counterfeit verifications in the Agri-food supply chain are very serious and reaching problems nowadays. The currently existing management systems for this process are either outdated or have significant issues when it comes to security, trust, traceability, management or product certification. The introduction of Blockchain technology, due to its intrinsic properties, has the potential to solve identity, ownership, data temper, traceability and certification issues. This is possible due to the unique identity of each actor and signing verification at each transaction/action. The decentralized nature and constant verification of the chain state also contribute to this security and trust in the system. The proposed solution does not compromise currently existing features, but it will, however, allow all the actors to take part in the Agri-food supply chain system and constantly monitor its actions. The SmartAgriChain project intends to implement a supply chain and certification system based on Hyperledger Sawtooth that will be capable of identity management, hierarchical users/organizations, significant scalability, low costs, low energy consumption and compatibility with legacy systems. In this paper, we will explore and explain the system design and architecture in detail as well as a cost projection based on the number of nodes of the distributed system.