Blockchain Applications in the Agri-Food Domain: The First Wave

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the application potential of blockchain technology in the agri-food industry, by following a case study approach focused on the early adopter companies. As the topic is emerging, there are not enough academic papers available to warrant a systematic literature review. To confirm this hypothesis and to inform to better understand guide this research, we first conducted a pre-literature review. Based on its outcomes, we formulated three research questions, and developed a protocol to identify case studies, and subsequently analyzed them to answer our questions. We identified and studied six case studies, in which blockchain has been used to address issues of trust and transparency, and to facilitate information sharing among agri-food chain stakeholders. While blockchain adoption is still in its infancy, governance issues are important, as broader partnerships are required for successful, sustainable applications.

Food supply chain in the era of Industry 4.0: blockchain technology implementation opportunities and impediments from the perspective of people, process, performance, and technology

“…Benefit to tracking and traceability Trusted/authorised users verify the traceability and authenticity of the product at any point of FSC through blockchain adoption. (Tian 2016, Tian 2017, Yiannas 2018Hammi et al 2018;Ndraha et al 2018), so that consumers can obtain the full information of the product in the whole FSC (Tian 2016;Kairos Future 2017;Carbone et al 2018;Bordel et al 2019;Chen et al 2020;Liu, Yan, and Song 2020) Using smart contracts links up each process among food traceability stage (Lin et al 2017a;Lin et al 2017bBaralla, Ibba, et al 2019Pournader et al 2020;Motta, Tekinerdogan, and Athanasiadis 2020) Allowing the verification of the integrity of data sworn by each authorised user in FSC (Baralla, Ibba, et al 2019). Blockchain based quality assurance tracking enables same business rules and transaction data while reducing disputes among business partners, information asymmetries and consequently improving governance (Lucena et al 2018;Perboli, Musso, and Rosano 2018;George et al 2019) Benefit to integration of new technologies Blockchain-based traceability system performs better with involving different technologies such as IoT (Christidis and Devetsikiotis, 2016;Caro et al 2018;Hammi et al 2018;Lin et al 2018;Madumidha et al 2019;Ivanov, Tsipoulanidis, and Sch€ onberger 2019;Mistry et al 2020), AI (Qian et al 2020), unique identifiers such as RFID (Lin et al 2017b ;Tian 2017;Ejaz and Anpalagan 2019;Gopi et al 2019;Tsang et al 2019) and QR code, NFC (Tsang et al 2019), WSN, GPS…”

Blockchain: case studies in food supply chain visibility

“…The academic literature has few empirical studies of live cases. Three exemplar papers stand out: McConaghy et al ’s (2017) study of blockchain’s implementation for rights management in digital art, and studies by Motta et al (2020) and Kshetri (2018), which use archival material rather than primary research. This paper is thus among the earliest case studies of blockchain’s use as a tool providing visibility in supply chains and the challenges that remain.…”

Applying blockchain to climate action in agriculture : State of play and outlook : background paper

“…As noted by many, the number of blockchain applications has been rapidly rising in agriculture and food (Howson, 2020;Motta et al, 2020). Many companies are providing services tracking the blockchain ecosystem.…”

“…The availability and reliability of input data is a well-known 'first mile' problem in blockchain and other data-driven technologies in agriculture (Antonucci et al, 2019). A related problem is the diversity of data definitions and metrics that hinders interoperability of data across different systems (Ge et al, 2017;Motta et al, 2020). Combatting climate change globally requires collaboration and data sharing.…”