Nutrition is an indispensable part of our lives. Fresh food rich in useful nutrients will always be in demand for customers. Therefore, product suppliers select reliable farms to deliver top-quality fruits, vegetables, and meat. The digitalization of this industry has brought expanded opportunities to track the goods supplying process from the farm to the market. A state-of-art technology allowing this is blockchain.
This article will cover how this solution can advance the agriculture industry and provide farmers as well as customers with many valuable benefits.
Blockchain Value for Agriculture
The broad spectrum of blockchain benefits comprises enhanced transparency and security within the sensitive information exchange. The decentralized storage doesn’t allow performing modifications, making blockchain an excellent solution for encrypted data transmission.
When you hear about the “blockchain,” the first thing that will probably come to mind is cryptocurrency. Yet, it’s nothing more than a tip of an iceberg of the full set of capabilities provided by this technology. Primarily, it ensures fast and easy financial operations processing. Nowadays, every agricultural business which requires to fulfill a letter of credit through the bank is able to begin applying the blockchain. Applying traditional methods, essential verification and approval procedures averagely last less than seven days. In contrast, Using blockchain, the time required for the L/C procedure takes 4 hours maximum.
Agriculture Enhancement with Blockchain
This technology in practice can considerably ease the process of making decisions regarding agricultural projects’ funding, as well as raise the competitiveness level and advance the entire industry.
There are the two vital indicators defining the global agricultural market:
- The population as well as need in food growth
- The raise in need of the organic and natural food
Therefore, the goods supplying for the increasing population is impossible without the two crucial issues resolved:
- Effective logistics and purchases fundings organization
- Tracking the quality of the product and averting the falsification
Clean, compound environments for data accessing and sharing enable organizing the supply chain prudently and maintain communication among suppliers, ferrymen, and consumers.
Another aspect of applying this technology is goods production, certification, and processing to support bona fide suppliers. Providing higher solidity, blockchain allows farmers to type in the description of goods and eliminate the opportunity to edit it as well as sell two products with the same certification.
Blockchain Advantages for Agriculture
Let’s single out the main benefits of this technology for the agricultural industry:
- Clear supply chain. Blockchain can ensure extra information concerning the products’ history via the label with a QR code.
- Fraud elimination. As mentioned earlier, blockchain doesn’t allow any data modifications. It is accessible for everyone, providing higher protection from fraud.
- Attracting investors. Gathering more investments is now possible with Initial Coin Offering (ICO), a cryptocurrency crowdfunding. It’s an excellent strategy for startups as well.
- Smart contracts potential. This solution refers to a specific code comprising agreement to accomplish it automatically. Thus, there’s no need to wait for the payment for a long time for farmers.
- Stock exchange. Blockchain brings some pros into the stock exchange, like allowing farmers to trade future contracts at a fixed price for the products. Therefore, both parties cooperate on fixed and negotiated conditions.
- Cryptocurrency in agriculture. PavoCoin is a blockchain-based solution (token) created particularly for the agricultural industry. We’ll discuss this project later in this article too.
Blockchain in Agriculture: Practice
It’s high time to observe some use cases where blockchain can ensure farmers with vital advantages:
Products Protection and Origin Monitoring
Blockchain accesses users to the complete data concerning each product, such as how it was stored, its origin, and many other valuable details. This is possible due to the blockchain-based solutions storing each record tracking the entire lifecycle of goods. It raises the trust towards farmer’s production, as the consumer can observe all the foods’ processes.
Qualitative Raw Materials Detecting
Fresh grain, seeds, and top-quality animal foods are the key to delivering excellent goods to the customers. Thus, blockchain allows tracking the quality information regarding the raw materials. This substantially raises client satisfaction as well as profit.
Entities Decentralization
Huge agricultural businesses set their conditions for farmers involving the costs as well as goods to supply.
Blockchain decreases the farmers’ dependence on the organization, allowing them to establish their terms with their partners and receive stable, guaranteed income by delivering top-class food.
Internet of Things Integration
Watering tacking, soil quality, parasites, number of specific animals can be tracked via the embedded sensors sharing data to the gadget. This information can be transferred to the cloud and stored in the blockchain.
Blockchain Startups in Agricultural Industry
Here are some successful and promising market solutions which can inspire you to start your own project:
Ripe.io
Founded in 2017 in San Francisco, this project is built particularly for the agricultural domain. Both clients and farmers are provided with increased transparency: the solution’s functionality allows tracking the humidity, temperature, and other vital data of the goods’ conditions. Besides, it allows monitoring the products’ route, adapting the delivery system, and harvesting according to the information gathered.
AgriChain
SaaS app development market presents a new technology aiming at grain supply chain enhancement as well as better organizing. This solution assists in smart contracts creation, and allows monitoring logistics vital stages more comprehensively. What’s more, farmers are able to enter the information concerning fertilizers and feedstuff to assess the possible output.
PavoCoin
Located in the USA, this organization possesses subsidiaries around the world. This software allows tracking crops growing, collecting, processing, and supplying. All the data is kept on blockchain, providing potent protection as well as legitimacy.
Summarize
Blockchain is a booming technology which has found its application in a great diversity of domains. When it comes about agriculture, this solution can help overcome a row of crucial challenges in this niche. Yet, blockchain technology is quite complex and sophisticated. As a result, to make the software profitable and beneficial for your business, you should find a credible software development vendor who will provide you with a top- quality solution taking into consideration all your company’s requirements as well as goals.
