Sabir Hussain Awan, Asif Nawaz, Sheeraz Ahmed, Hasan Ali Khattak · 6 authors
Ensuring food safety requires to fully monitor the overall process of handling food, preparation as well as storage of food in such a way that it reduces the risk of people getting sick due to undue cleanliness or any mismanagement in the overall process. Smart agricultural includes an efficient, clean and safe food supply chain system that can tackle these issues more smartly than that of existing system. Agricultural food supply chain denotes the mechanism explaining how the farm food comes to our tables. The research presents a smart model for the transformation of traditional food supply chain considering Blockchain Technology. The model promises to give all stakeholders participating in the agricultural food supply chain equal opportunities even if they are not familiar to each other but without the help of trustworthy third party service provider. We validate proposed blockchain based smart model with our own scheme without using blockchain.
Internet of things(IoT) is the conception of interfacing the devices to the internet to make life more efficient. It comprises the large amount of data in its network where it fails to assure complete security in the network. Blockchain is a distributed ledger where it mainly focuses on the data security. Every block in the blockchain network is connected to its next block, which prevents threats like large data loss. In the area of agri-food supply chain, where IoT plays a very important role, there occurs data integrity issues or data tampering. This can lead to improper supply chain management, timely shortage of goods, food spoilage, etc. So the traceability of agri-food supply chain is necessary to ensure food safety and to increase the trust between all stakeholders and consumers. Many illegal activities can be prevented, and cold chain monitoring can be achieved by bringing in transparency and traceability.
Somdip Dey, Suman Saha, A.R. Singh, Klaus D. McDonald-Maier
Food safety is an important issue in today’s world. Traditional agri-food production system doesn’t offer easy traceability of the produce at any point of the supply chain, and hence, during a food-borne outbreak, it is very difficult to sift through food production data to track produce and origin of the outbreak. In recent years, blockchain based food production system has resolved this challenge, however, none of the proposed methodologies makes the food production data easily accessible, traceable and verifiable by consumers or producers using mobile/edge devices. In this paper, we propose FoodSQRBlock (Food Safety Quick Response Block), a blockchain technology based framework, which digitizes the food production information, and makes it easily accessible, traceable and verifiable by the consumers and producers by using QR codes. We also propose a large scale integration of FoodSQRBlock in the cloud to show the feasibility and scalability of the framework, and experimental evaluation to prove that.
Lucas Leme, Arthur Medeiros, Gautam Srivastava, Jorge Crichigno · 5 authors
The current livestock industry in certain parts of the world still runs on archaic infrastructure. Using dated systems built on inefficient database structures are not ideal moving into the next millennial as the central point of failure. A lack of data sharing and data transfer also limits the methods by which cattle farmers can operate. In this paper, we examine the use of a novel infrastructure that is in line with the current push of many industries to move into the age of Internet of Things. We propose an efficient, secure, decentralized, and distributed system that can modernize the way the cattle industry runs in dominantly rural settings. Motivated by a use case in Brazil, we propose the use of cloud storage ad blockchain connectivity being used to monitor the overall health of livestock through their natural lives. We also describe a system that can easily transfer livestock from one organization to another through blockchain for ease of buying/selling procedures that are quite common for cattle framers.
Food is an essential aspect of our lives. Back in those days, people consumed seasonal fruits and vegetables which were available locally and on a daily basis. But things have changed when refrigeration units were invented. People were now able to store and consume food products which were nonseasonal also. In today's world, warehouses and cold chains are of striking importance because most of the food products that we see in our supermarkets and grocery stores come from them. Due to improper management of food products these warehouses have become an epicenter for food wastage. Since most of the traditional warehouses are manual or RDBMS based, they can be easily tampered. With these considerations in this paper, we have proposed an autonomous warehouse system which will tackle food wastage by using Machine Learning and Blockchain technology.
Food holds a major role in human beings’ lives and in human societies in general across the planet. The food and agriculture sector is considered to be a major employer at a worldwide level. The large number and heterogeneity of the stakeholders involved from different sectors, such as farmers, distributers, retailers, consumers, etc., renders the agricultural supply chain management as one of the most complex and challenging tasks. It is the same vast complexity of the agriproducts supply chain that limits the development of global and efficient transparency and traceability solutions. The present paper provides an overview of the application of blockchain technologies for enabling traceability in the agri-food domain. Initially, the paper presents definitions, levels of adoption, tools and advantages of traceability, accompanied with a brief overview of the functionality and advantages of blockchain technology. It then conducts an extensive literature review on the integration of blockchain into traceability systems. It proceeds with discussing relevant existing commercial applications, highlighting the relevant challenges and future prospects of the application of blockchain technologies in the agri-food supply chain.
Abstract This paper reviewed the existing and potential blockchain applications of this technology, which are to trade the agricultural wastes including animal wastes, energy, and byproducts among the farmers and entrepreneurs to generate wealth; to manage the animal product supply chains such as dairy products, beef, and chicken to enhance their safety and traceability; and to distribute the funds to refugees and migrants, displaced due to emergencies, to buy various farming inputs including feed. A blockchain is a distributed database of records in the form of encrypted “blocks” (smaller datasets), or a public ledger of all transactions or digital events that have been executed and shared among participating parties and can be verified at any time in the future. The attributes such as integrity, immutability collaboration, organization, identification, credibility, and transparency of blockchain technology make it ideal for a number of applications in animal production and animal health sectors. Some potential applications of the blockchain technology in the livestock sector, not limited to the ones stated here, are to effectively manage various input supply chains, such as animal feed, de-wormers, medicines, and vaccines, among others; integration of feed composition and environmental footprint databases; and sustainability and technology outreach platforms. Current challenges toward increased application of the blockchain technology are also presented. These topics would serve as the starting points for future applications of the blockchain technology in animal farming.
Abstract Food industry is unique from the point of view of Efficient Consumer Response (ECR) which is a supply chain management initiative specific to the food industry and reflects organizations’ efforts to achieve quick response to reaching to market and ultimately consumer using Electronic Data Interchange, RFID (Radio Frequency Identification and bar codes. This paper would focus on looking at pros and cons of evaluating traditional traceability (is an important link in protecting public health since it allows health agencies to more quickly and accurately identify the source of contaminated food, fruit or vegetables believed to be the cause of an outbreak of foodborne illness, remove them from the marketplace, and communicate to the supply chain) matrix versus newly introduced disruptive technology called blockchain. This report outlines various components of traceability and its relation to other parts and methodologies in ensuring food product authenticity the paper further outlines detailing of blockchain technology its various types, implementation with examples and application in food industry. The concluding part of paper compares traditional vs. blockchain methods in regard to cost benefit analysis and implementation perspective of blockchain. The paper through reasoning and arguments justifies that how blockchain bases systems of food traceability are more suitable from speed, confidentiality and ease of implementation perspective as compared to traditional electronic traceability and current systems. From limitation perspective this paper highlights how lack of interoperability is currently the biggest one obstacle preventing system-wide, farm-to-fork food product traceability.
In the digitized world, everything and products are being designed and used with the help of advanced technologies. The Agriculture industry is not an exception; Walmart has started tackling food safety by using blockchain technology in the supply chain. As agriculture is one of the most influential sectors for the world economy and has also a great impact on the livelihood of the people. As the agriculture industry is growing globally, it is difficult to keep an eye on the information of the whole food supply chain management. So be able to increase the transparency, food safety and customer satisfaction digitalization of food is the need of the hour. In context to Indian economy very little research has been done in the area of addressing farmer’s problem by using blockchain technology. This research will help in addressing the major issues of traceability, transparency and quality and trust in food supply chain management and the hybridisation of agriculture field by using blockchain technology. This new technology has led to new products and new methods to organise the supply chain in an efficient way and analyze the blockchain framework for the traceability of products. This study aims to find out the challenges and issues faced by the farmers in the food supply chain and to propose the relevant efficient and transparent solutions that will benefit farmers as well as customers in the long run.
Spyros Voulgaris, Nikos Fotiou, Vasilios A. Siris, George C. Polyzos · 6 authors
The use of blockchains to improve product quality and safety control in food supply chains through transparent, trusted, and secure end-to-end traceability frameworks, has received increased attention in the last few years. The use of blockchains, though, does not come at no cost. Poor design of blockchain-based applications can lead to prohibitive costs, intolerable delays, and nonscalable systems. In this work we explore different architectures for blockchain-based traceability and quality control of produce, proposing, evaluating, and comparing four different scenarios. Our evaluation uses public and private Ethereum instances, and assesses the considered architectures in terms of cost and overall throughput.
The following topics are dealt with: innovation management; organisational aspects; Internet of Things; supply chains; social networking (online); cryptography; strategic planning; financial management; sustainable development; and supply chain management.
Supply chain traceability is one of the most important problems faced by all organizations globally. Tracking any commodity is a tedious job and requires a lot of manual attention. The existing system uses a centralised database system to track a commodity. Blockchain is a decentralised, immutable ledger managed by a cluster of computers. The very nature of blockchain makes it suitable technology for traceability in a supply chain. Blockchain creates immutable records. Once a transaction is stored in the blockchain, it is impossible to tamper it illegally. This immutability of blockchain builds trust among the participants that conduct business in a lack of trust environment. Using consensus protocols, blockchain builds trust between the various participants. Blockchain provides traceability since immutable records are added in blockchain; it is easy to track the source of the product. This paper illustrates the Application of Blockchain in Agri-Food Supply Chain. It unfolds how blockchain technology can be integrated to an Agri Supply Chain and improves the traceability. This integration enables companies to quickly track unsafe products back to their source and see where else they have been distributed. This integration can result to prevent illness and save lives, as well as reduce the cost of product recalls.
As the population structure changes due to lower fertility rates and rapid aging, the blood supply available for blood transfusion decreases and demand increases. In most countries, blood management information systems, led by national institutions, operate centrally. However, existing centralized blood management systems have limitations in that they lack detailed blood information and, moreover, information is not reflected in real time. To solve this problem, this paper presents an innovative blood cold chain system based on blockchain technology. The proposed system aims to increase information visibility by recording the overall information on the blood supply and providing detailed blood information such as blood consumption and disposal to the distributed ledger. In addition, this paper proposes direct blood transactions between medical institutions in cases of emergency. Currently, blockchain technologies are being actively employed in the supply chain management and medical fields in addition to financial systems. Particularly, private blockchain techniques with limited participants are relatively fast and reliable, making them suitable for B2B (Business-to-Business) transactions. Therefore, the proposed system is based on the architecture of Hyperledger Fabric, a private blockchain technology implemented by the Hyperledger Composer tool. Information in the proposed blood cold chain system cannot be forged or tampered with, and information recorded and shared in real time is kept transparent. In addition, allowing for B2B blood transaction in special circumstances will minimize the blood supply time and enable patients to be transfused quickly. Moreover, the surplus blood of medical institutions will be used to increase the usage rate relative to the supply amount.
The BeefLedger Export Smart Contracts project is a collaborative research study between BeefLedger Ltd and QUT co-funded by the Food Agility CRC. This project exists to deliver economic value to those involved in the production, export and consumption of Australian beef to China through: (1) reduced information asymmetry; (2) streamlined compliance processes, and; (3) developing and accessing new data-driven value drivers, through the deployment of decentralised ledger technologies and associated governance systems. This report presents early insights from a survey deployed to Chinese consumers in Nov/Dec 2019 exploring attitudes and preferences about blockchain-credentialed beef exports to China. Our results show that most local and foreign consumers were willing to pay more than the reference price for a BeefLedger branded Australian cut and packed Sirloin steak at the same weight. Although considered superior over Chinese processed Australian beef products, the Chinese market were sceptical that the beef they buy was really from Australia, expressing low trust in Australian label and traceability information. Despite lower trust, most survey respondents were willing to pay more for traceability supported Australian beef, potentially because including this information provided an additional sense of safety. Therefore, traceability information should be provided to consumers, as it can add a competitive advantage over products without traceability.
The globalization of the food supply chain industry has significantly emerged today. Due to this, farm-to-fork food safety and quality certification have become very important. Increasing threats to food security and contamination have led to the enormous need for a revolutionary traceability system, an important mechanism for quality control that ensures sufficient food supply chain product safety. In this work, we proposed a blockchain-based solution that removes the need for a secure centralized structure, intermediaries, and exchanges of information, optimizes performance, and complies with a strong level of safety and integrity. Our approach completely relies on the use of smart contracts to monitor and manage all communications and transactions within the supply chain network among all of the stakeholders. Our approach verifies all of the transactions, which are recorded and stored in a centralized interplanetary file system database. It allows a secure and cost-effective supply chain system for the stakeholders. Thus, our proposed model gives a transparent, accurate, and traceable supply chain system. The proposed solution shows a throughput of 161 transactions per second with a convergence time of 4.82 s, and was found effective in the traceability of the agricultural products.
Objective: This paper explores the use of blockchain technology in agriculture and agricultural products.Research Design & Methods: The article is based on a critical analysis of the literature with a view to understanding the current state of use of blockchain technology in agriculture. It was assumed that blockchain technology is used in the agricultural sector to promote food security, prevent food fraud and verify the origin and authenticity of agricultural products and agricultural inputs.Findings: Blockchain technology improves traceability and transparency, allowing parties within the agricultural value chain to identify faulty or suboptimal processes as well as bad actors. This ensures that ideal conditions are pursued from farm to market. The ability to trace the origin of food products is essential when food safety breaks down. The early identification of the origin of contamination will enable food companies to swing into action quickly to prevent illness and thus save lives. Such a timely response will also help limit food wastage and will save money by containing financial fallout.Implications / Recommendations: Blockchain technology has strong potential for success within the agricultural sector. It can be used to ensure food safety by enabling the source of agricultural products, as well as the source of their potential contamination, to be traced, and the authenticity of farming inputs to be verified. Blockchain can also be employed in the process of disbursing subsidies to farmers to ensure that they benefit from subsidy programmes. Finally, blockchain technology will offer farmers better prices and better payment methods and solve challenges in land title sales and purchase registration.Contribution: Blockchain is a new technology to the agricultural sector, and enormous challenges remain. There is still no established system to regulate blockchain transactions. Nevertheless, the application of blockchain in agriculture holds promising rewards.
Farmers are inhibited from Agri supply chains due to upfront transaction costs. There is ample evidence that farmers' participation in supply chains produce benefits for farmers. This paper analyses how blockchain might support farmers to reduce transaction costs and improve their involvement in supply chains by reviewing the literature. The study contributes some theoretical insights to our knowledge on how transaction costs can be reduced by implementing supply chain collaboration with blockchain technology. It further presents some design implications for a blockchain-enabled system that would also support collective marketing. Practitioners in the Agri domain can use this analysis as a support for developing a system that improves farmers' participation in Agri supply chains.
Zhihao Hao, Dianhui Mao, Bob Zhang, Min Zuo · 5 authors
Current food traceability systems have a number of problems, such as data being easily tampered with and a lack of effective methods to intuitively analyze the causes of risks. Therefore, a novel method has been proposed that combines blockchain technology with visualization technology, which uses Hyperledger to build an information storage platform. Features such as distribution and tamper-resistance can guarantee the authenticity and validity of data. A data structure model is designed to implement the data storage of the blockchain. The food safety risks of unqualified detection data can be quantitatively analyzed, and a food safety risk assessment model is established according to failure rate and qualification deviation. Risk analysis used visual techniques, such as heat maps, to show the areas where unqualified products appeared, with a migration map and a force-directed graph used to trace these products. Moreover, the food sampling data were used as the experimental data set to test the validity of the method. Instead of difficult-to-understand and highly specialized food data sets, such as elements in food, food sampling data for the entire year of 2016 was used to analyze the risks of food incidents. A case study using aquatic products as an example was explored, where the results showed the risks intuitively. Furthermore, by analyzing the reasons and traceability processes effectively, it can be proven that the proposed method provides a basis to formulate a regulatory strategy for regions with risks.
Jiang Duan, Chen Zhang, Yu Gong, Steve Brown · 5 authors
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), one out of 10 people get sick from eating contaminated food. Complex food production process and globalization make food supply chain more delicate. Many technologies have been investigated in recent years to address food insecurity and achieve efficiency in dealing with food recalls. One of the most promising technologies is Blockchain, which has already been used successfully in financial aspects, such as bitcoin, and it is attracting interests from food supply chain organizations. As blockchain has characteristics, such as decentralization, security, immutability, smart contract, it is therefore expected to improve sustainable food supply chain management and food traceability. This paper applies a content-analysis based literature review in blockchain adoption within food supply chain. We propose four benefits. Blockchain can help to improve food traceability, information transparency, and recall efficiency; it can also be combined with Internet of things (IoT) to achieve better efficiency. We also propose five potential challenges, including lack of deeper understanding of blockchain, technology difficulties, raw data manipulation, difficulties of getting all stakeholders on board, and the deficiency of regulations.