Using Blockchain Technology for a Sustainable Agri-food Supply Chain in Thailand

Abstract

Agri-foods that generally made purchased at traditional markets are now increasingly made purchased at modem trade market chains - supermarkets, particularly developing country. This offers particular opportunity for food producers if they can adhere to the exacting supplier standards and systems dictated by supermarket chains particularly quality assurance. Rural farmers can find themselves excluded from dealing with such bodies because they do not have the resource to implement the necessary systems to guarantee process quality. There is increasing need to develop more efficient and effective logistics operation in order to better integrate Thailand’s agri-food industry particularly food producer into this important business sector. The blockchain in its guise as distributed ledger’s allow encrypted information regarding each transaction to be securely shared between the relevant parties and offers a new approach for enhancing transparency and traceability between business and food producer, as well as the government organisations. This paper introduces the challenges currently faced by food producers and demonstrates how blockchain could potentially integration and improve service reliability for food producers.