Vitaly Kuprenko
Food is vital for human beings. So, everybody wants to purchase high-quality products that are fresh and healthy. Of course, food suppliers also prefer to buy fruits, vegetables, and other products from reliable farms. Although, it was quite difficult to track the way how products go from the farm to the market in the past. But nowadays blockchain technology completely changed agriculture.
Why Use Blockchain in Agriculture?
Blockchain technology can bring a lot of profit to the agricultural sector. To provide you with examples, we’ve listed six main advantages of this technology below.
- Clear supply chain. Consumers want to know the origin of the food they eat every day. Additionally, some of them even ready to pay more to look through certifications. So, blockchain technology provides users with unchanged information about the products, e.g. when the poultry was born, its living conditions, and so on. All this data can be shown on the customers’ smartphones after scanning the QR code.
- Fraud prevention. The information stored in blockchain can’t be changed, as a result, the data is protected from frauds. Such machinations as a price reduction or increase become impossible.
- Attract investments. Blockchain provides an opportunity for small farms to attract investments. Initial Coin Offering or ICO provides a new way of investments with so-called cryptocurrency crowdfunding. It’s a good option for startups in the agricultural sector.
- Smart contracts. Due to smart contracts solutions, farmers can get their payments in time. Smart contracts are absolutely automated. So, as soon as farmers fulfill their obligations, they receive profit without delays.
- Stock exchange. Stock exchanges have got some profit from blockchain implementation. For instance, farmers can trade futures contracts where the cost of products is fixed. As a result, the farmer gets a certain amount of money and a customer doesn’t worry about price fluctuations.
- Agricultural cryptocurrency. Bitcoin is a popular cryptocurrency all over the world. Additionally, there is PavoCoin. This cryptocurrency was created specifically for the agriculture field.
Blockchain Use Cases in Agriculture
Since the blockchain development, there are many use case of this technology in the agriculture sector. Let’s discuss some of them more precisely.
- Tracking food origin. Usually, consumers don’t have an opportunity to see the origin of an apple or chicken. Of course, the supermarket should have all necessary certifications, but you can’t check how the product was stored. Blockchain technology can solve this issue. So, blockchain-based solutions can keep all the records, e.g. where the product was born, how it was feed, and so on.
- Preventing raw material adulteration. Farmers also want to be sure that they purchase high-quality grain, seeds, and so on. So, blockchain technology can assist in providing information about the quality of products. Blockchain allows farmers to track the data about raw material they want to buy. As a result, farmers offer consumers good products and gain their trust as well as stable profit.
- Decentralization of companies. Big companies all over the world tend to set prices, dictate terms as well as consider what farmers will grow next season. Small companies somehow depend on large enterprises, so they couldn’t impose their conditions. Now, small companies and blockchain technology can change this situation. Let’s consider an example. A small company may purchase a farm share and a farmer will supply items only to this company during the season. Due to a created smart contract, there are no additional expenses or services.
- Quality control using the IoT. The Internet of Things can assist in monitoring the quality of crops and animals. Such things as irrigation amount, the number of cow heads, soil quality, and so on can be tracked using special sensors and software. As a result, all collected data is stored in the blockchain. After that, this information can be available to customers. All the processes are automated, so there is no opportunity to change the data.
Blockchain-Based Startups in Agriculture
A lot of innovations came from startups and the agricultural sector isn’t an exception.
Ripe.io
This startup company is located in San-Francisco. Ripo.io focuses on agriculture and tends to offer customers a high level of transparency. The system developed by Ripo.io can detect humidity, ripeness, and the temperature of the product. So, the farmer gets the information about the conditions of the items.
PavoCoin
The company has developed the PavoCoin system that assists farmers in tracking the process of crop cultivation. Moreover, this solution can also collect data about gathering, processing, and distribution of the product. Due to the implementation of blockchain technology, the processes can be easily monitored and the information is stored.
To conclude our article, blockchain technology brings a lot of innovative solutions to agriculture. Blockchain-based software let farmers improve everyday processes and increase the revenue of the existing business.
