Decentralized Knowledge Sharing Framework for Aquaponics-Based Food Production: Insights on Data Sharing and User Interfaces

Abstract

Aquaponics-based food production (AFP) has been receiving increased attention among practitioners, but is still relatively unknown to the public and is not yet widely adopted in the European region. This paper explores the potential of distributed ledger technologies, the Internet of Things, and encryption methods for a secure and distributed storage of critical AFP information in the supply chain. The usage of a distributed ledger can enable a tamper-proof log of events across the supply chain, which increases trust and awareness among authorities, corporate partners, and end consumers. The findings of this study include a developed decentralized knowledge sharing framework with proposed user interface designs based on IOTA, ESP32 sensors, and an attribute-based encryption scheme to enable transparency and secure knowledge exchange among novice and prospective aquaponics farmers, thus facilitating the adoption of AFP practices in the local community. This paper presents the benefits and feasibility of the developed conceptual framework based on initial experimental results in a laboratory environment.