Blockchain helps all links in the agri & food chain in smart collaboration, including consumers. Information sharing between parties creates more openness with the end customer about quality, origin and composition of the product and helps him to make healthier choices when buying food.
Companies operating in chains for eggs, meat, vegetables, fruit and potatoes can now start using the technology in the first Dutch blockchain platform in the agri & food sector. The platform, developed by Food Insights and made available under licence, gives all links the opportunity for open communication.
The technology increases opportunities for mutual cooperation and sharing product and production information. By making such data available, the farmer, grower and livestock farmer can produce more efficiently and market-oriented, thus contributing to reducing food waste. Despite numerous initiatives in reducing food waste, waste is still relatively high. We do throw away around 50 kilos of food per person every year and roughly 38 per cent of food for human consumption is thrown away or processed into animal feed.
Contributing to circular transition
Blockchain can also help promote circularity, FoodInsights expects. With the Netherlands in the starting blocks for a transition to a circular economy, recycling residual and side streams in the agri and food sector is becoming a key factor for the success of that transition.
Through this transparency, companies strengthen their mutual relationship in the chain, not only up to and including the consumer, regulator and financiers also stay involved by sharing information.
The platform also supports companies to secure product quality, set up the chain smarter and finance working capital more easily.
Decentralised network
Lan Gé, senior scientist Innovation, Risk and Information Management at Wageningen Economic Research, also sees the benefits for agri-food chains of a transparent decentralised network that is blockchain technology. Lan Gé launched a pilot project together with TNO into the application of blockchain technology in agrifood chains.
Blockchain can be applied, for example, in certification processes of food products and tracking in logistics processes. Every link in the food chain, such as producers, suppliers, processors, distributors, retailers, regulators and consumers, can access information about the origin and quality of the product. The blockchain network can then also ensure, for example, that the source of any contaminated products can be traced more quickly.
The collaboration between Wageningen Economic Research and TNO has now resulted in a first proof of concept for Agrofood.
Sharing without risk
Sharing data in blockchain is risk-free. The technology packages information in such a way that it can be shared securely in chains and systems.
Blockchain combines existing technologies such as cryptography and database and network management to exchange data in an open network. The technology can act as a fully digital chain alongside the physical chain.
The best-known application of the technology is the Bitcoin system for payments. According to Lan Gé, blockchain can in fact be used in all forms of transactions, such as registering housing transactions without notaries. Working without the so-called trusted third party makes such a system potentially more efficient and less vulnerable. Instead of intermediaries, it uses algorithms and cryptography, among other things.
Ria Besseling
