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Emerging Opportunities for the Application of Blockchain in the Agri-food Industry














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    Book (stand-alone)
    Emerging opportunities for the application of blockchain in the agri-food industry
    Revised version
    2020
    Distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) and smart contracts provide a unique opportunity to bring greater efficiency, transparency and traceability to the exchange of value and information in the agriculture sector. By utilising digital records, cryptography and the disintermediation of transaction processing and data storage, DLTs can improve both agricultural supply chains and rural development interventions in a number of ways. The technology has the potential to simplify and integrate agricultural supply chains, enhance food safety, facilitate access to trade finance and other types of agricultural financial services, improve market transparency, provide greater legal certainty to land-tenure systems and strengthen accountability for compliance with international agreements related to agriculture. This paper aims to facilitate a better understanding of the opportunities, benefits and applications of DLTs in agri-foods. It explores the potential of DLTs to address many of the challenges that disadvantaged market players face by participating in integrated supply chains. It also identifies the technical limits, possible institutional barriers to their adoption and the way forward for the public sector. Overall, it shows how DLTs can be an impetus to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
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    Book (stand-alone)
    Emerging opportunities for the application of blockchain in the agri-food industry 2018
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    Distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) and smart contracts provide a unique opportunity to bring greater efficiency, transparency and traceability to the exchange of value and information in the agriculture sector. By utilising digital records, cryptography and the disintermediation of transaction processing and data storage, DLTs can improve both agricultural supply chains and rural development interventions in a number of ways. The technology has the potential to simplify and integrate agricultural supply chains, enhance food safety, facilitate access to trade finance and other types of agricultural financial services, improve market transparency, provide greater legal certainty to land-tenure systems and strengthen accountability for compliance with international agreements related to agriculture. This paper aims to facilitate a better understanding of the opportunities, benefits and applications of DLTs in agri-foods. It explores the potential of DLTs to address many of the challenges that disadvantaged market players face by participating in integrated supply chains. It also identifies the technical limits, possible institutional barriers to their adoption and the way forward for the public sector. Overall, it shows how DLTs can be an impetus to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
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    Book (stand-alone)
    Opportunities for Agri-Food Chains to become Energy-Smart 2015
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    The world’s agri-food supply chains are being challenged. For several decades, the production, processing and distribution of food have been highly dependent on fossil fuel inputs (the exception being subsistence farmers who use only manual labor and perhaps animal power to produce food for their families that is then usually cooked on inefficient biomass cook-stoves). There has also been an ever growing demand for food as the world population grows, along with the increasing demand for higher p rotein diets. As a result, the agri-food production and processing sector has become a major producer of greenhouse gases (GHGs) This report aims to assist actors along the value chains, policy makers and other stakeholders in the agri-food industry to reduce the dependence on fossil fuels, reduce related greenhouse gas emissions, and become more resilient to possible future climate change impacts. Findings also show that the current dependence on fossil fuel inputs by the agri-food indust ry results in around seven to eight percent of GHG emissions. These emissions can be reduced by both improved energy efficiency along the agri-food chain and the deployment of renewable energy systems to displace fossil fuels. Various co-benefits identified - improved health, time saving, reduced drudgery, water savings, increased productivity, improved soil quality and nutrient values, biodiversity protection, food security, and better livelihoods and quality of life - should be taken into acco unt in any related policy development. As well, potential trade-offs also need to be carefully considered, in particular the use of more packaging materials to increase the shelf life of food products and ensuring that clean energy solutions do not compromise food production and food security. Moreover, what may be a suitable solution for an industrialized corporate farming system may not apply to a small family or subsistence farming systems. The challenge is to meet growing energy demands with low-carbon energy systems and to use the energy efficiently throughout the production, transport, processing, storage and distribution of food that takes into account the diversity of food production conditions.

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