The grain and oil food supply chain has a complex structure, long turnover cycles, and many stakeholders, so it is challenging to maintain the security of this supply chain. A reliable traceability system for the whole grain and oil food supply chain will help to improve the quality and safety of these products, thus enhancing people's living standards. Driven by the trusted blockchain and trusted identity concepts, this paper constructs an information traceability model for the whole grain and oil food supply chain, and it describes how contract implementation and example verification are performed. First, an information traceability model framework of the whole grain and oil food supply chain is established based on the survey and analysis of the grain and oil food supply chain. Second, trusted identification, blockchain master-slave multi-chain storage, and trusted traceability mechanisms are designed. The trusted identification mechanism is used to track the data information of the whole grain and oil food supply chain. The blockchain master-slave multi-chain storage solves the problem of miscellaneous information caused by many links in the whole grain and oil supply chain, while the credible traceability mechanism ensures the credibility of information collection, storage, and transmission. Finally, based on the data flow, the model operation process is analyzed. Using the information traceability model, the grain and oil food trusted traceability system is designed and developed with the Hyperledger Fabric open-source framework, and a case study is conducted to verify the system. The results show that the model and system constructed in this study solve the problems of low data security and poor sharing, which exist widely in the traditional traceability mechanism, and enable the trusted uplink, storage, processing, and traceability of multi-source heterogeneous information in the lifecycle of the whole grain and oil food supply chain. The proposed system improves the granularity and accuracy of grain and oil food traceability, and provides support for the strategic security of grain stock.
Shoufeng Cao, Marcus Foth, Warwick Powell, Thomas Miller · 5 authors
This paper designed and implemented a blockchain-based multisignature approach to digitally transform supply chain governance in multi-tier food supply chains, particularly in a geographically dispersed beef supply chain. An exploratory case study was utilised to demonstrate the design, implementation, and evaluation of a blockchain-based multisignature approach that was deployed on the Smart Trade Networks (STN) Proof of Authority (PoA) blockchain system for data collection and validation in a beef supply chain context. The multisignature approach was implemented with a use case to track a shipment of 92 cattle and meat products through key events from farm to food service. The use-case deployment records approximately 6000 data points registered on the STN PoA blockchain system. The real-case deployment illustrates the capability of the blockchain-based multisignature approach to digitally improve beef supply chain governance by enabling whole-of-chain transparency and trustworthy information sharing and supports supply chain professionals to have a better understanding of how to unlock blockchain potential for supply chain transformation.
Abstract Ensuring high quality and safety of food products has become a key factor on one hand to protect and improve consumers health and, on the other one, to gain market share. For this reason, much effort in the last year has been devoted to the development of integrated and innovative Agriculture and Food (Agri-Food) supply chains management systems, which should be responsible, in addition to track and store orders and deliveries, to guarantee transparency and traceability of the food production and transformation process. In this paper, differently from traditional supply chains which are based on centralized systems, we propose a fully distributed approach, based on blockchain technology, to define a supply chain management system able to provide quality, integrity and traceability of the entire supply chain process. The proposed framework is based on the Hyperledger Fabric technology, which is a permissioned blockchain system: a prototype has been developed and, by using some use cases, we show the effectiveness of the approach.
Based on the advantages of Big Data and blockchain in food traceability area and information sharing area, it has attracted widespread attentions. However, it is not so popular in agricultural field, a vital reason is the scarcity of effective incentives. Government incentive as an important incentive measure is thought to be useful. To study the subsidy rules in the new background, we chose an agri-food supply chain with one producer and one retailer as research object and divided government incentive into direct incentive and indirect incentive. Then, considering the changes of consumer perceived safety on agri-food in the new environment, the demand function was revised. Furthermore, we proposed and analyzed three subsidy models and their benefit functions considering the information service inputs based on Big Data and blockchain (BBIS). Findings: (1) The subsidy models will not change the variation tendency of prices and benefits with the BBIS optimization coefficient, the BBIS investment costs from the producer and the retailer, the ascension of the unreliability coefficient of quality safety and the agri-food quality level. (2) When the subsidy coefficients about direct and indirect subsidies can meet a relationship, benefits of chain members in the indirect subsidy model are higher than them in the direct subsidy model. Findings offer a theoretical guidance for government departments to make and implement the subsidy strategies. In addition, for company, it can provide a theoretical guidance on setting pricing strategies in the new technology background.
The European Union aims for Member States to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. To this end, the European Commission has launched a set of policy initiatives in The European Green Deal. One of the components is the Farm to Fork strategy, through which the European Union aims to increase, among other things, to 25% of the agricultural areas with organic production, as well as new labeling rules to promote the sustainable consumption of food and organic food. A modern technology that can be used for food traceability is Blockchain technology. The main objective of this paper is to study consumers' perceptions of the possibility of using blockchain technology in the distribution of "organic" food products. The research was quantitative and followed the specific aspects of the blockchain concept and its use in the distribution and tracking of food and ecological goods, "organic". The aim of the research was to develop a predictive model, using the basic regression equation, to obtain a positive perception of the use of blockchain technology for food and environmental goods.
Food safety is a fundamental right in modern societies. One of the most pressing problems nowadays is the provenance of food and food-related products that citizens consume, mainly due to several food scares and the globalization of food markets, which has resulted in food supply chains that extend beyond nations or even continent boundaries. Food supply networks are characterized by high complexity and a lack of openness. There is a critical requirement for applying novel techniques to verify and authenticate the origin, quality parameters, and transfer/storage details associated with food. This study portrays an end-to-end approach to enhance the security of the food supply chain and thus increase the trustfulness of the food industry. The system aims at increasing the transparency of food supply chain monitoring systems through securing all components that those consist of. A universal information monitoring scheme based on blockchain technology ensures the integrity of collected data, a self-sovereign identity approach for all supply chain actors ensures the minimization of single points of failure, and finally, a security mechanism, that is based on the use of TinyML’s nascent technology, is embedded in monitoring devices to mitigate a significant portion of malicious behavior from actors in the supply chain.
Food safety is a public health issue of paramount importance. In this regard, blockchain has emerged as a promising technology that allows users to effectively and efficiently record the origin and flow of products and eliminate or reduce harmful food fraud. Consumers can benefit from this development by receiving up-to-date and verifiable information about the origins and delivery routes of their purchases. Drawing on signaling theory and the results of two experimental studies with 151 and 152 participants, respectively, we investigate how the use of blockchain to trace food products impacts consumers’ perception of product quality as a mediating variable and subsequently their purchase intention. Our framework further considers brand familiarity as a moderating variable. The findings from the two experiments show that blockchain labels as a signaling mechanism in food supply chains help to strengthen consumers’ perceived quality of food products, which, in turn, increases their purchase intention. This effect is more pronounced for less familiar brands, which is valuable information for managers who want to build a brand’s reputation. From an academic perspective, we highlight the applicability of signaling theory to identify blockchain-based traceability systems as important drivers of perceived product quality and consequently purchase intention.
Rice is a major food crop around the world, and its various quality and safety problems are closely related to human health. As an important area of food safety research, the rice supply chain has attracted increasing attention. Based on blockchain technology, this study investigated problems of data privacy and circulation efficiency caused by complex rice supply networks, long circulation cycles, and various risk factors in each link. First, we deconstructed the quality and safety of each link of the rice supply chain at the information level and established a key information classification table for each link. On that basis, we built a rice supply chain information supervision model based on blockchain. Various encryption algorithms are used to secure the sensitive data of enterprises in the supply chain to meet regulators' needs for efficient supervision. Moreover, we propose a practical Byzantine fault-tolerant consensus algorithm that scores the credit of enterprise nodes, optimizes the selection strategy of master nodes, and ensures high efficiency and low cost. Then, we built a prototype system based on the open-source framework of hyperledger fabric, analyzed the model's viability, and implemented the system using cases. The results indicated that the proposed system can optimize the information supervision process of rice supply chain regulators and provide a feasible solution for the quality and safety supervision of grain and oil.
Abstract The increasing population and income inequality in the last decades have made it necessary to focus on the concept of sustainability. In the changing world order, with economic crises, instabilities, pandemics, and social media, sustainability awareness differs significantly from past years. In addition, developing new technologies and concepts (big data, blockchain, IoT, robotic, etc.) plays a crucial role in meeting social awareness in terms of sustainability. Food sustainability is also one of the most important pillars in this concept. The integration of new technologies in agriculture and food chains will enable the current world population to use resources more efficiently and sustainably. Blockchain, one of the technologies that emerged with the arrival of Industry 4.0, is a technology that can be used effectively in many sectors. Particularly in supply chain networks, it is seen as a technology that supports the sustainability concept due to its features such as decentralization, reliability, transparency, consensus standards, and traceability. However, since blockchain is an immature and new technology, there are some challenges with integrating it into existing conventional systems. This study aims to present a conceptual framework for the integration of blockchain technology to establish a sustainable tea supply chain, define possible actions, and prioritize the possible risks that may arise in this integration process; this will be done through the Spherical Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (SF‐AHP) approach. In this context, initially, the current tea supply chain will be considered and the activities carried out will be defined in terms of technological, environmental, and strategic sustainability. Then, the design that includes the integration of all activities with blockchain technology is presented. The proposed design covers the entire tea supply chain from end to end and is considered with regard to all sustainability dimensions. In the proposed framework, barriers that may be encountered and risks that may arise at each stage of the tea supply chain process are identified; managerial implications are then presented to eliminate these risks. To enhance the use of the recommendations made, risks and barriers are prioritized with SF‐AHP management. Thus, the problems that need to be solved primarily in the technological transformation process can be evaluated more clearly. The proposed theoretical framework is expected to extend to all agricultural practices and support technological advances throughout the agricultural sector.
Ana Margarida Cachada, Hasmik Badikyan, Camilo Anzola-Rojas, Javier Parra-Domínguez · 6 authors
Agriculture traceability demands a large volume of data that needs to be collected across the supply chain. Very early tracking and traceability systems used workers to record the information manually which entails risks, such as faulty information recording as well as inefficient resource usage. The implementation of tamper proof semi-automated digital ledgers will have a great impact on issues such as compliance with regulations, food provenance, food fraud, and many others, and therefore will gradually increase the trust within the supply chain. This paper provides an overview on the different stages of the AgriFood supply chain and of the fundamentals of a Distributed Ledger Technology, namely Blockchain, which can be used to mitigate some of the issues related to transparency and traceability of this sector. It also presents some solutions that already implement this technology to enable the traceability in the AgriFood sector. The authors also present the most important challenges and opportunities identify regarding the application of Blockchain based traceability systems for the AgriFood supply chain.
Giuseppe Varavallo, Giuseppe Caragnano, Fabrizio Bertone, Luca Vernetti-Prot · 5 authors
Recent progress in IoT and software development has simplified data acquisition and immutability of information in the agri-food supply chain. In the last few years, several frameworks and applications were proposed to ensure traceability in the agri-food-sector using distributed ledger technologies (DLT) such as Blockchain technologies. Still, no other study has presented a Blockchain-based traceability platform with a lower impact on the environment and lower cost for each transaction sent by the supply chain. This article presents a traceability platform based on Green Blockchain with low energy consumption and costs savings applied to the Fontina PDO cheese supply chain, part of the project “Typicalp”, funded by the European Union (EU). The proposed traceability system is based on Algorand Blockchain, which uses the Pure Proof-of-Stake mechanism of consensus that requires minimal computational power, is highly scalable and environmentally sustainable. In addition to the environmental and financial benefits, the developed traceability platform has made it possible to digitize the entire production chain, making the data immutable and available in real-time for Fontina consortium operators and final consumers.
Tracing food products along the entire supply chain is important for achieving better management of food products. Traditionally, centralized traceability systems have been developed for such purposes. One major drawback of this approach is that different users of the supply chain have their own systems with their own complexities and distinct features; thus, the interaction among them creates challenges when implementing a single centralized system. Therefore, a decentralized traceability system is favorable for tracing food products along the supply chain. In this study, we develop a supply chain traceability system framework based on blockchain and radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. The system consists of a decentralized blockchain-enabled data storage platform for data management and an RFID system at the packaging level for data collection and storage. We applied a consortium blockchain to the application. Fabric 2.0 in Hyperledger was chosen as the development platform. The proposed blockchain-enabled platform can provide decentralized data management and its underlying algorithm can guarantee data security. The system includes a creatively designed blockchain-enabled data structure in the RFID tag. When people scan the tag, the relevant information is written in the tag as a block linked to the previous blocks; simultaneously, the information is transmitted to the blockchain platform and recorded on the platform. No battery is required and the system works when there is an RFID reader nearby. The usage conditions included shipment, stocking, and storage. The RFID tag can be directly attached to paper packaging. This approach embeds the blockchain technique into the RFID tag and develops a corresponding system. The new traceability system has the potential to simplify the tracking of products and can be scaled for industrial use.
Malni Kumarathunga, Rodrigo N. Calheiros, Athula Ginige
Smallholder farmers produce over 70% of the world’s food needs. Yet, the socioeconomic conditions of the smallholder farmers are substandard. One of the primary reasons for this unpropitious situation is that they generate modest income by selling their harvest due to the lack of trusted buyers and organized markets. This research explores how technology can enable the trust to reduce transaction-related risks, empowering unknown parties to transact. Blockchain technology has the potential of mitigating transaction-related risks and promoting trust with a tamper-proof history of transactions and automatic execution of smart contracts. Based on blockchain technology to promote trust, this research has discovered a novel approach for smallholder farmers to conduct exchanges by generating social capital as an individual and using that social capital as collateral for financial exchanges when establishing contracts. This approach empowers farmers to trade smart futures contracts on behalf of the expected harvest at a better rate to receive some cash in advance to be used in the cultivation process to produce a high-quality harvest that attracts better rates. It also enables them to perform aggregated marketing with enhanced market linkages that, in turn, assist in increasing margins made by the farmer.
Ibtisam Ehsan, Muhammad Irfan Khalid, Laura Ricci, Jawaid Iqbal · 7 authors
In agriculture supply chain management, traceability is a crucial aspect to ensure food safety for increasing customer loyalty and satisfaction. Lack of quality assurance in centralized data storage makes us move towards a new approach based on a decentralized system in which transparency and quality assurance is guaranteed throughout the supply chain from producer to consumer. The current supply chain model has some disadvantages like a communication gap between the entities of the supply chain and no information about the travel history and origin of the product. The use of technology improves the communication and relation between various farmers and stakeholders. Blockchain technology acquires transparency and traceability in the supply chain, provides transaction records traceability, and enhances security for the whole supply chain. In this paper, we present a blockchain-based, fully decentralized traceability model that ensures the integrity and transparency of the system. This new model eliminated most of the disadvantages of the traditional supply chain. For the coordination of all transactions in the supply chain, we proposed a decentralized supply chain model along with a smart contract.
Md. Akhtaruzzaman Khan, Md. Emran Hossain, Ali Shahaab, Imtiaz Khan
Despite substantial progress achieved with shrimp production during the last three and a half decades, growth of shrimp export remains minimal in Bangladesh. In the absence of effective traceability and transparency practices, a wide range of malpractice occurs both at the production and post-harvest stages. Traditional paper-based record-keeping methods for the shrimp supply chain are disparate and, therefore, cannot provide efficient traceability capacity and holistic view of the supply chain. These limit the identification of any issues in earlier juncture to proactively ensure food safety, best practice, and good governance. Addressing this multiplexed challenge, we present here ShrimpChain, a public-private hybrid blockchain-based conceptual framework. Focusing on the export market and utilizing existing technologies, the conceptual framework addresses the traceability, transparency, and certification challenges associated with shrimp export. In this framework, from the post-larva purchasing to the final packaging stage, relevant data for every stage will be entered by the associated actors via mobile/web app or Internet of Things devices to the blockchain network. Data authentication will be achieved by a novel approach of incorporating community consensus in conjunction with the machine-derived data entry timestamping method. Instead of the traditional central and endpoint certification approach, we propose a distributed and accumulative score-based certification approach that will grade packaged shrimps according to the completeness and accuracy of the authenticated data entered during different stages. Such distributed approach of certification will enhance not only food safety but also the quality and compliance to best practices. Most importantly, engaging shrimp farmers in the safety and quality assurance as well as to the certification process will empower them to have better control over the market and incentive to produce high-quality shrimp for high-value market.
Somdip Dey, Suman Saha, Amit Kumar Singh, Klaus D. McDonald-Maier
Food waste is an important social and environmental issue that the current society faces, where one third of the total food produced is wasted or lost every year while more than 820 million people around the world do not have access to adequate food. However, as we move towards a decentralized Web 3.0 enabled smart city, we can utilize cutting edge technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence, cloud computing and many more to reduce food waste in different phases of the supply chain. In this paper, we propose SmartNoshWaste—a blockchain based multi-layered framework utilizing cloud computing, QR code and reinforcement learning to reduce food waste. We also evaluate SmartNoshWaste on real world food data collected from the nosh app to show the efficacy of the proposed framework and we are able to reduce food waste by 9.46% in comparison to the originally collected food data based on the experimental evaluation.
Christian Bux, Erica Varese, Vera Amicarelli, Mariarosaria Lombardi
Islam is the second-largest religion on a global scale. All around the world Muslims are estimated to comprise more than 1.9 billion people. Therefore, the demand for Halal commodities is expected to reach a high growth rate: thus, it is crucial to increase its global market’s reliability and traceability. Based on these grounds, the scope of this paper is to assess Halal food sustainability, examining the barriers and opportunities offered by the certification and blockchain tools. To this purpose, the authors carried out an integrative literature review, selecting 54 contributions in the Web of Science platform. Despite several limitations, such as the lack of a standardized framework or universally accepted and reliable certifying authorities, the implementation of blockchain technology has emerged as an interesting instrument to increase the trustworthiness and traceability of Halal foods. This tool could also help the development of protocols and standard procedures, ensuring hygienic and permitted products that may boost food safety and security. Besides, the enhancement of the Halal certification and the blockchain tool, even if several efforts are required in terms of innovation and cooperation by local authorities, industrial associations and leading consumers, could enhance fair trade, ethical business, green animal breeding and environmental economics, and hence sustainable development.
Traditional cold chain logistics has problems such as centralized data storage, low data reliability, easy data tampering, and difficulty in locating responsible persons, which leads to the inability to guarantee consumer rights. To solve these problems, a cold chain logistics traceability system is proposed for fresh agricultural products based on blockchain. Both alliance chain and private chain are used in the paper in order to ensure that the product traceability system not only has certain openness but also must contain enough privacy and security. Alliance chain is mainly used to query and share product traceability information. The private chain will be used to collect and store the product traceability information of each enterprise and then connected to the alliance chain via hash pointers. The proposed system is beneficial for reducing the burden of network transmission of alliance chain and improving the efficiency of consumer product data query. At the same time, the private chain ensures the security and privacy of enterprise product data, which not only has high data storage efficiency but also can meet the requirements of all participants for the traceability system. In the experimental part, the feasibility of this system is verified through simulation experiments, which provides a reference for the combination of blockchain technology and cold chain logistics traceability system.
Bongisizwe Erasmus Buthelezi, Patrick Ndayizigamiye, Hossana Twinomurinzi, Shopee Dube
This paper systematically reviews the literature on the adoption of Blockchain technology in Supply Chain Management (SCM) processes. Using the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis) methodology, 53 peer-reviewed research publications from five different databases (IEEE Xplore, Science Direct, Scopus, Google Scholar, and EBSCOhost) were selected and analyzed using a classification coding framework. The findings reveal that Agri-food traceability, Blockchain security, smart contracts, and the Internet of Things (IoT) were the significant identified current trends in the use of Blockchain in SCM processes. The key identified challenges include high costs of transactions and a lack of trust between stakeholders. Identified solutions were Blockchain traceability systems and the use of smart contracts and IoTs. In addition, this paper identified gaps in the literature that need to be addressed in future studies.
Bello Musa Yakubu, Rabia Latif, Aisha Yakubu, Majid Iqbal Khan · 5 authors
The increasing number of rice product safety issues and the potential for contamination have established an enormous need for an effective strategy for the traceability of the rice supply chain. Tracing the origins of a rice product from raw materials to end customers is very complex and costly. Existing food supply chain methods (for example, rice) do not provide a scalable and cost-effective means of agricultural food supply. Besides, consumers lack the capability and resources required to check or report on the quality of agricultural goods in terms of defects or contamination. Consequently, customers are forced to decide whether to utilize or discard the goods. However, blockchain is an innovative framework capable of offering a transformative solution for the traceability of agricultural products and food supply chains. The aim of this paper is to propose a framework capable of tracking and monitoring all interactions and transactions between all stakeholders in the rice chain ecosystem through smart contracts. The model incorporates a system for customer satisfaction feedback, which enables all stakeholders to get up-to-date information on product quality, enabling them to make more informed supply chain decisions. Each transaction is documented and stored in the public ledger of the blockchain. The proposed framework provides a safe, efficient, reliable, and effective way to monitor and track rice products safety and quality especially during product purchasing. The security and performance analysis results shows that the proposed framework outperform the benchmark techniques in terms of cost-effectiveness, security and scalability with low computational overhead.
Blockchain technology is increasingly being supported for different agricultural commodity applications, including agricultural commodity tracing and provenance establishment. But many critical issues need to be addressed before the use of blockchain technology for this purpose becomes widespread both technologically and ethically. For that, I carried out a comparison of the different blockchain frameworks -mainly permissioned Hyperledger blockchain technology and Ethereum smart in terms of their agricultural sustainability applications. I also examined the role of Internet of Things (IoT) devices in supporting blockchain-driven sustainability. I identified how a lack of earth observation (EO) data undermines commodity provenance (and related ecological sustainability) establishment. However, the biggest threats to widespread blockchain technology adoption, especially for meeting sustainability standards include scalability issues and the lack of standard data protocols and governance measures.