The objective of this study is to provide a review and recommendations on enhancing agricultural productivity among small-scale farmers in Zambia. The paper also evaluates how small-scale farmers can better access inputs, value-added services, marketing, and export markets. This study is non-empirical and exploratory in nature with an extensive review of the literature. The paper analyzed small-scale farmers' access to finance, input supply, and high-value chain markets. The study also sought to understand the impact of lack of formal financial access on farmers’ welfare including their social lives. One of the recommendations the researcher makes is the need for the government to decentralize farmer support programs to community level, and task the local leadership with the purchasing and distribution of inputs so as to maximize the reach of intended beneficiaries on time, and avoid the impact of delayed input distribution such as late planting of crops. The research is a non-empirical study which relied on available literature to conduct research on this topic.
Sufyan Yakubu, Ravi Samikannu, J. Lydia, S. Leones Sherwin Vimalraj · 6 authors
This study examines the development of distributed Photo Voltaic (PV) systems for rural communities in Ghana. This study reviews the present situation of distributed PV systems in Ghana, highlighting the benefits and challenges associated with their implementation. The review draws on several key studies that analyze the policy landscape, potential for co-benefits, barriers to development, and economic feasibility of distributed PV systems. The findings indicate that while distributed PV systems offer numerous benefits, including increased access to electricity and reduced carbon emissions, several significant barriers to their development include financial constraints, limited private sector involvement, and unfavorable policies. The review concludes by suggesting that further research is needed to explore innovative financing mechanisms, effective policy frameworks, and improved public-private partnerships, which could accelerate the deployment of distributed PV systems and improve energy access for rural communities in Ghana.
Elias Ribeiro da Silva, Jacob Lohmer, Michelle Rohla, Jannis Angelis
Electric vehicles are perceived as a key technology to make mobility more sustainable, leading to a sharp rise in electric battery production and use. However, electric vehicle batteries are only a sustainable solution if they support decreasing the total impact of the supply chain, which makes circularity initiatives a key element in this transition. Currently, this is limited by the data sharing among actors in the supply chain on critical information needed to support a circular economy approach. In this study we explore how data sharing and information technology support the development of circularity in electric vehicle supply chains and examine the role of blockchain technology to address the circularity needs of battery tracking and capability sharing. To allow a comprehensive analysis, we conduct a case study in the electric vehicle battery supply chain, including companies from multiple tiers to capture all relevant perspectives. The results show that data sharing supports extended value chain activities, evolving from a linear to a circular supply chain perspective. It also indicates that blockchain technology supports removing existing barriers for a circular economy by facilitating transparency and traceability, especially for second-life applications beyond the dominant players in this industry.
Francesco Longo, Giovanni Mirabelli, Vittorio Solina, Laura Belli · 14 authors
The recent COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted all the weaknesses of manufacturing systems and supply chains. In this challenging context, smallholders have faced several crises mainly related to the difficulty of finding manpower for harvesting activities and the impossibility of distributing food, due to the forced closure of many distribution channels. The main consequences were lost sales and wasted food. With the aim of increasing the responsiveness of smallholders in the face of COVID-like crises, this paper provides an overview of methodologies and approaches currently available in the literature in terms of: ICT tools, blockchain-based solutions, business models, sustainability-oriented frameworks, simulation models. The analysis of the literature provides two main outputs: (1) a list of challenges to be faced in the coming years to improve the working conditions of smallholders, (2) the definition of future research developments, which mainly concern the design of an ICT platform, which integrates multiple technological aspects.
Abstract Over the last decade, the green shoots of a new economic order have emerged as decentralized technologies challenge traditional financial systems. Decentralized finance (DeFi) holds the potential to transform international business (IB) by offering accessible financial services across borders, disrupting traditional intermediaries, and promoting financial inclusion. While traditional fintech has challenged banks, DeFi operates outside legacy systems, leveraging blockchain technology and smart contracting to introduce a new range of products and services that provide first-movers with an upper hand to both expand their business across the globe as well realize cost savings on existing business. Despite offering advantages like efficiency, transparency, and security, DeFi faces regulatory uncertainties and scalability, adoption, and stability concerns. Our study explores how DeFi can seamlessly integrate into the IB space while addressing these challenges. In addition to offering insights for investors, multinational firms, and regulators, we also lay the groundwork for future IB research in the fintech domain. As the DeFi innovation unfolds, understanding and harnessing its potential can empower stakeholders to engage responsibly and effectively in this transformative landscape.
Christina Singh, Aleksandra Natalia Wojewska, U. Martin Persson, Simon Laursen Bager
Transparency and equitability are key for improved sustainability outcomes in global value chains. Blockchain technology has been touted as a tool for achieving these ends. However, due to the limited empirical evidence, claims on transparency and sustainability benefits are largely theoretical. We lack an understanding of the benefits and drawbacks for upstream actors within global value chains and how this affects technology adoption. Addressing this gap, we conduct an empirical study to identify the drivers and obstacles for coffee producers in Colombia in adopting blockchain. We base our research on an event-driven and permissioned blockchain model, specifically designed for this research. Applying the Participation Capacity Framework and conducting semi-structured interviews with coffee producers and key informants, we analyze adoption attitudes towards the blockchain application. We further identify opportunities and drawbacks from the producers’ perspective. We set these findings in the context of the Global Value Chain research, considering the existing power relations in the coffee value chain. The top-down nature of blockchain projects raises distributive concerns, as resource investments, implementation burden, and risks are significantly higher upstream, whereas downstream lead firms will benefit most. We identify data squeeze as an additional channel of sustainable supplier squeeze relevant in the case of blockchain initiatives. Data squeeze implies lead firms turning the data obtained through, likely unpaid, labour of blockchain participants into a monetizable assets and marketable value through branding and advertisement. Based on the findings, we identify potential design dimensions and implementation features that can contribute to materializing producer benefits, thus mitigating the risk of a sustainability-driven supplier squeeze.
Nick Bernards, Malcolm Campbell‐Verduyn, Daivi Rodima‐Taylor
This article interrogates the turn towards digital technologies for addressing sustainability challenges in global supply chains. Focusing on the case of blockchains, we assess industry claims that this set of distributed ledger technologies for undertaking, verifying, and publishing digital transactions provides the greater transparency necessary to resolve sustainability challenges. Our central contention is that blockchain-based initiatives to promote sustainability in global supply chains double-down on modes of third-party audit and disclosure governance that have thus far failed to address labour and environmental abuses. The turn towards these digital technologies, we show, extends interlinked processes of managerialization and the spread of ‘audit culture’ in the governance of global supply chains. These tendencies heighten obstacles to enhancing sustainability across global supply chains, exacerbating the very challenges blockchain initiatives are ostensibly meant to address. Worse than not fundamentally addressing sustainability problems, applications of this set of ‘sustech’ render failures to address sustainability abuses more opaque. The technological novelty of blockchain helps to construct what we call a ‘veil of transparency’ over sustainability abuses and marginalities in and across global supply chains.
Rafael Bettín-Díaz, Alix E. Rojas, Camilo Mejía-Moncayo
Abstract This exploratory study explains how to implement Blockchain technology for a supply chain by a proof of concept on Hyperledger Fabric, an open distributed ledger platform. This approach allowed to identify the feasibility and some implementation challenges, yield feedback, and exemplify one manner of tracing product origin using a distributed ledger technology. For this purpose, the case study of origin coffee is analyzed, given the relevance of traceability in this type of coffee and the cultural and economic importance of this agricultural product in the Colombian context. In addition, the data stored in the Blockchain and some technological architecture aspects are discussed.
Stephen Muathe, Paul Sang, Lucy Kavinda, Sammy Letema · 6 authors
Kenya’s Startup ecosystem has experienced tremendous growth over the last ten years. Further, Kenya’s startups have also been among the top-funded in the continent during the same period – attracting financing of between USD 300 million – over USD 3 billion. However, there is currently a lack of granular data guiding policies on the startup ecosystem in Kenya. Hence this Paper traces startup successes and pitfalls of the Ten years (2010-2020) Period in Kenya. The study utilized cross-sectional and longitudinal research designs. The target population was start-ups registered in the 47 Counties in Kenya. A total of 104 startups participated in the study. A mix of sampling techniques was used, namely cluster-stage, systematic, purposive, and snow-balling sampling techniques, to select the respondents for the study. Data were analyzed using Content analysis descriptive statistics were used for data analysis. The findings indicated that startup innovation hubs emerged in Nairobi in 2010 but offer time, which spurred the mushrooming of startups, seats, and co-working spaces with decentralization to significant towns in the country. The Kenyan startup ecosystem has experienced tremendous growth for the last two decades, growing from 10% in the 2000-2010 to 80% in 2010-2020. However, access to financing remains the biggest challenge for startups because of the risk associated with it, especially for early-stage startups. To strengthen the growth of the startup ecosystem, the government, through the statement of Kenya National Innovation Agency, should ensure the development of policies tailored towards startups. The national government should provide matching funds and establish an Inter-county collaboration framework to ensure skills transfer within and among the counties.
Anne Charlotte Bunge, Amanda Wood, Afton Halloran, Line Gordon
Food system technologies (FSTs) are being developed to accelerate the transformation towards sustainable food systems. Here we conducted a systematic scoping review that accounts for multiple dimensions of sustainability to describe the extent, range and nature of peer-reviewed literature that assesses the sustainability performance of four FSTs: plant-based alternatives, vertical farming, food deliveries and blockchain technology. Included literature had a dominant focus on environmental sustainability and less on public health and socio-economic sustainability. Gaps in the literature include empirical assessments on the sustainability of blockchain technology, plant-based seafood alternatives, public health consequences of food deliveries and socio-economic consequences of vertical farming. The development of a holistic sustainability assessment framework that demonstrates the impact of deploying FSTs is needed to guide investments in and the development of sustainable food innovation.
Open access
Agriculture Sustainability and Environmental Impact
Objective: This paper aimed to discuss how blockchain technology would incorporate several changes in the fishery supply chains, in order to make them more reliable and sustainable. Method: This is a qualitative study, using an exploratory method with descriptive approach. In addition, the literature review in this study presents theoretical contributions regarding utility. Main Results: The study highlights the importance of incorporating blockchain features into seafood supply chains, which are currently fragmented and lack of real-time information, focusing on its traceability potential to leveraging fishery supply chains operations and outcomes. It identifies a sequence of strategic checkpoints that provide real-time information by using blockchain in fishery supply chains. Relevance / Originality: This manuscript presents a diagram of a seafood supply chain considering how blockchain allows the data gathering in each stage in order to provide traceability to the supply chain. Hence, the study serves as a map, as well as a model, for upcoming research on how to understand the incorporation of technology into supply chains stages. Theoretical / Methodological Contributions: Supply chains support international business operations. Furthermore, as digital revolution moves aggressively forward, supply chains need to adapt to it in order to fit for the new stakeholders’ expectations. This study uses sustainable supply chain management and blockchain technology as positioning literature. Management Contributions: The study provides an overview of how fishery supply chains would work by incorporating blockchain technology, which extends the literature about sustainable supply chain management and proposes paths for actions for policymakers in order to make them improve the business ecosystem. This study implies a practical contribution to global value chain perspective and the discipline of business.
Since 2008, cryptocurrencies, or digital peer-to-peer currencies/assets, have amassed interest and proven unique in their ability to circumvent traditional financial institutions (disintermediation). The system can supersede the nation-state, while also garnering the attention of nation-states and marginalized groups. Indigenous individuals and Nations are among those interested in cryptocurrency, experimenting with it to express resistance to economic imposition beginning in the colonial era. Utilizing an Indigenous storytelling method, this article unveils the technological life and afterlife of an altcoin, MazaCoin, as a ghost of empire, insofar as it links the technological present of financial capital and the past (and ongoing present) of US settler colonialism. Throughout its various complicated reanimations, it expresses a relentless remembering of settler colonial injustices, performing productive haunting work within the twenty-first century cryptocurrency ecosystem. This article offers a reminder that there is much to learn about Indigenous alternative currencies in the cultural economy as the strings of racism, settler colonialism, poverty, financialization, and empire continue to tangle.
Hana Trollman, Guillermo Garcia‐Garcia, Sandeep Jagtap, Frank Trollman
Background: This research aims to identify how blockchain technology could support the ecological embeddedness of the coffee supply chain. Ecological embeddedness is a subset of the circular economy (CE) that demands legitimacy through design changes to product, production and/or packaging for benefits to economic actors and the environment. This is in contrast with legitimacy as a public relations exercise. Blockchain is a digital transformation technology that is not fully conceptualized with respect to supply chain implementation and the related strategy formulation, particularly in the context of sustainability. Furthermore, the integration of consumers into the CE remains not well understood or researched, with the main focus of CE being the cycling of resources. Methods: This research employs a qualitative case study methodology of the first coffee business in the USA to use blockchain technology as an exemplar. Gap analysis is then applied to identify how blockchain could be used to advance from the current state to a more sustainable one. Results: Findings indicate that the implementation of blockchain is not ecologically embedded in the example studied. Conclusions: The extension of blockchain technology to consider the by-products of production and valorizable waste throughout the supply chain as assets would support ecologically embedded CE for coffee.
Increasingly, blockchains and distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) are posed to impact economic futures and urban governance. New forms of human settlement are emerging as a result of and in service to cryptocurrency, curiously concentrating in areas with colonial ties such as Latin America and the global South. Technologists and those who can pay them are largely driving these discourses and decisions forward, while regulators and regular citizens struggle to catch up. If the buzz around blockchain opens the power to dream new techno-economic futures, who has the power and privilege to dream? This paper explores the intersection of digital technology with alternative economic visions in Puerto Rico, using principles of commoning and cooperativism in contestation to venture capitalism, US imperialism, and new crypto-colonialism. We echo Hardt and Negri (2017: 111) in calling advocates for alternative economies to “immerse ourselves into the heart of technologies and attempt to make them our own against the forces of domination that deploy technologies against us.” The goals of this collaborative research are to inform more equitable tech policy legislation in Puerto Rico, to caution against potential co-optation and techno-fixes, and to establish frameworks for cooperative experimentation using digital technologies including DLTs.
Abstract As a concern with manufacturing industries, circular economy (CE) practices—often labeled “circular manufacturing (CM)”—are industrial tasks through which several circular economy principles have been integrated. Among these circular manufacturing strategies, “3R” (recycle, refurbish/remanufacture, and reuse/redistribute) is the key strategy that assists the manufacturing industry with closing the loop for sustainability. An effective inclusion and management of 3R lead a firm to a greater likelihood of successfully integrating CE and CM. In recent years, remanufacturing has gained greater prominence, especially with the emergence of technology, including cyber‐physical systems. These technologies assist the remanufacturing firm with efficient take‐back systems through tracking. However, data transferred through these technologies among value chain partners in remanufacturing are not reliable. Due to the lack of trust and transparency, value chain partners are hesitant to participate in remanufacturing supply chains. To address the limitation of technologies in remanufacturing, blockchain has been introduced to secure the data. Despite the advantages of blockchain technology, practitioners face difficulties in integrating these blockchain technologies into the remanufacturing context. Several earlier studies addressed the challenges of implementing blockchain, but no earlier studies have specifically examined remanufacturing industries, which are entirely different from forward supply chain industries. Concerning the fact, this study identifies the barriers that exist with the implementation of blockchain technology in the application of the remanufacturing sector. A framework has been proposed and validated in a Danish automotive parts remanufacturing company. Multi‐criteria decision‐making method has been used to identify the effective and most influential barriers among common barriers. Results reveal that “scaling of technology” ( B6 ) is the key barrier of BCT implementation in remanufacturing context. This study concludes with useful discussions based on the results along with the recommendations to eradicate those influential barriers and their respective impacts on SDGs (SDG4, SDG8, SDG9, and SDG17). Finally, this study sheds light on future enhancements on the integration of blockchain technology in remanufacturing to reap several benefits of circular manufacturing.
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.
Anand K. Bapatla, Saraju P. Mohanty, Elias Kougianos, Deepak Puthal · 5 authors
Abstract Globalisation has facilitated different industries to eliminate geographical boundaries and equipped organisations to work collectively to produce goods. Pharmaceuticals is one such industry which has majorly benefited from globalisation to reduce costs and increase profitability at different aspects of research, development, manufacturing of drugs and finally distribution of drugs. Globalisation not only reduces costs and increases profits for the industry, it also makes essential medication available to all individuals even at remote areas of undeveloped, developing and developed countries. As the number of entities or participants grew in the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain (PSC), the complexity and abstractness of the drug delivery from manufacturer to consumer has increased, which raised new concerns like counterfeit medication, incorrect, incomplete or no information about the drug reaching the consumer thus undermining customer confidence and most importantly distribution delays which can cause serious impact on the life of the consumer as well as business growth. Considering all these challenges, there is a dire need for a robust PSC which can eliminate blind parties and provide a transparent chain. A transparent PSC will eliminate data fragmentation between different participating entities by creating a trail of secure, single source of truth for the entire life cycle of a medicine, thereby eliminating the introduction of counterfeits and ensuring the consumer safety. This article proposes a novel Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) based transparent supply chain for PSC and proof‐of‐concept is implemented to analyse the scalability and efficiency of the proposed architecture. Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) is one of the technologies which can provide such transparent PSC and Smart Contracts (SC) are the most commonly used component in such systems to implement business logic and access control mechanisms. The proposed PharmaChain model investigates all the interactions between the main entities in PSC and also addresses smart contract issues such as re‐entrance, randomness and lacking trustworthy data feed. Results are compared with other proposed solutions for PSC based on DLT.
The Covid-19 pandemic poses great challenges to the resilience of global agriculture in response to disasters or crises. The pandemic mitigation measures prevent the spread of coronavirus but bring disruptions to the agriculture sector. Smallholder farmers and small agricultural producer particularly showed their vulnerability to these disruptions amid the pandemic. Technology innovations can be adopted to develop resilient, flexible and inclusive agriculture. Blockchain enables autonomous and decentralized coordination of trust in a distributed network without any trusted third-party intermediaries that can vastly reduce the transaction costs of exchange and trade. This paper examines the viable applications of blockchain technology in enhancing the resilience of agriculture and the food supply chain, facilitating trades and financing, and driving value allocation from a perspective of institutional economics.
<em>In the 21<sup>st</sup> Century in the world of computers everything is digitalized. This is an era of smart phones, smart classes and smart contracts. The world is being held in our palms. Contracts are being entered into across the globe day in a day out. Smart contract solves the issue of physical distance. This paper throws light on origin of smart contracts, its progression, its usage, its merits and demerits. The paper throws light on the Indian laws which revolve around smart contracts. The author has incorporated suggestions for the better execution of smart contracts.</em>
Despite the scholarly consent that blockchain technology can play a central role for implementing circular economies (CEs) to arrive at cleaner consumption and production, the blockchain adoption rate by companies for this purpose is low. While this might be partly caused by technology maturity problems, scholars also recognize a lack of vision about blockchain technology applications that might assist companies in implementing CE business models. Particularly, we miss knowledge about consumerdesired future CE scenarios to help the understanding of the likelihood of consumer adoption. In this paper, we therefore ask: What are, from the perspective of future consumers, desirable far-future CEs that use blockchain technology? We present the findings of a study that analyzed 57 consumer-desired CE scenarios in 2041 in which blockchain is used. From the analysis, we identify four ideal types of consumer-desired CEs, and the blockchain use cases in them. Based on that, we discuss and conclude on value propositions for CE business models that companies can use to attract consumer participation and blockchain adoption in pro-circular shifts. Second, we aimed at gathering consumer visions that can guide the strategic investment of companies in the development of blockchain technology applications for efficient CE business models.