Blockchain in agriculture

TL;DR

This paper reviews how blockchain technology can enhance transparency in agriculture and food supply chains, highlighting ongoing projects, potential benefits, and the challenges hindering widespread adoption among stakeholders.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of current blockchain initiatives in agriculture, critically assesses their maturity, and discusses barriers to broader implementation.

Findings

Blockchain promotes transparency in food supply chains.

Numerous ongoing projects demonstrate potential benefits.

Challenges include technical, educational, and regulatory barriers.

Abstract

Blockchain is an emerging digital technology allowing ubiquitous financial transactions among distributed untrusted parties, without the need of intermediaries such as banks. This chapter examines the impact of blockchain technology in agriculture and food supply chain, presents existing ongoing projects and initiatives, and discusses overall implications, challenges and potential, with a critical view over the maturity of these projects. Our findings indicate that blockchain is a promising technology towards a transparent supply chain of food, with many ongoing initiatives in various food products and food-related issues, but many barriers and challenges still exist, which hinder its wider popularity among farmers and systems. These challenges involve technical aspects, education, policies and regulatory frameworks.