The rise of blockchain technology in agriculture and food supply chains

Abstract

Blockchain is an emerging digital technology allowing ubiquitous financial transactions among distributed untrusted parties, without the need of intermediaries such as banks. This article examines the impact of blockchain technology in agriculture and food supply chain, presents existing ongoing projects and initiatives, and discusses overall implications, challenges and potential, with a critical view over the maturity of these projects. Our findings indicate that blockchain is a promising technology towards a transparent supply chain of food, with many ongoing initiatives in various food products and food-related issues, but many barriers and challenges still exist, which hinder its wider popularity among farmers and systems. These challenges involve technical aspects, education, policies and regulatory frameworks.

Adoption of Blockchain Technology in the Australian Grains Trade: An Assessment of Potential Economic Effects

“…Kamilaris et al, () argue that in order to lower the barriers to Blockchain use, public sector investment is needed in research and innovation, as well as in education and training, in order to produce and demonstrate evidence for the potential benefits of this technology. From a policy perspective, actions that can be taken include encouraging the growth of Blockchain‐minded ecosystems in agri‐food chains, supporting the technology as part of the general goals of optimising the competitiveness and ensuring the sustainability of the agri‐food supply chain, as well as designing a clear regulatory framework for Blockchain implementations.…”

“…According to Kamilaris et al, (), Blockchain technology is already being adopted by many projects, aiming to establish a proven and trusted environment to build a transparent and more sustainable food production and distribution, and integrating key stakeholders into the supply chain. However, there are still many issues that need to be addressed, beyond those at technical level.…”

Utilization of text mining as a big data analysis tool for food science and nutrition

“…With the ability of data collection from multiple stages in food supply chains, the IoT has made it possible for creating a more transparent, sustainable, and efficient food manufacturing (Astill et al, 2019). Blockchain, a technology that enables the sharing of encrypted records or digital events among collaborating parties, has recently been applied to agriculture and food retail supply chain for increasing food traceability (Astill et al, 2019;Kamilaris, Fonts, & Prenafeta-Bold́, 2019). The combined usage of the IoT and Blockchain technology would have the potential to improve supply chain management (Rejeb, Keogh, & Treiblmaier, 2019).…”

“…In addition to consumer data, there can be privacy issue on industry sources of data. Kamilaris et al (2019) discussed the problem in blockchain environment, pointing out that the technology may increase transparency on one hand, while creating privacy issues on the other hand. In food supply systems, privacy is particularly important for keeping one's competitive advantages in the market.…”

Implementing Blockchain in Public Distribution System

“…If a reports that he has sold a particular item, government can verify that by viewing the transactions recorded on the . Thus, this can help us to eliminate any fraud activities in the system [2].…”