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Applying Blockchain in Agriculture: A Study on Blockchain Technology, Benefits, and Challenges

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Abstract

Agriculture is one of the world’s most influential sectors. Agricultural productivity is beneficial to the economy, privacy, nutrition, and health of a country. In the modern era, agronomists have taken various technologies like IoT and Blockchain to get better farming crops. Blockchain technology used to address several problems from various fields like economy, health, and energy. Blockchain utilized in supply chain management structures in the agriculture sectors that provide accountability, protection, neutrality, and efficiency for all processes in a supply chain. It helps to solve many of the internet’s stability and security complications. In this chapter, we deliberate the use case of blockchain and its functionality process in agriculture. Further explores blockchain technology, application, challenges, and opportunities toward the field of agriculture.
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Applying Blockchain inAgriculture:
AStudy onBlockchain Technology,
Benets, andChallenges
SandeepKumarM, MaheshwariV, PrabhuJ, PrasannaM,
andR.Jothikumar
1 Introduction
1.1 Agriculture Revolution inBlockchain
Agriculture is the primary innovation of human development. During the 1700s, the
British agricultural revolution triggered the industrial revolution that provides us
cities and towns [1]. It is mostly a stable growth by working with the development
and help of plants and animals. For instance, Australian commercial agriculture
focused on crop and animal species taken from outside. However, technology is still
deployed in agriculture. Potts and Kastelle (2017) enhanced agricultural productiv-
ity[2]. They developed farming inputs like seeds, assets, supplies to agricultural
and output like wheat, wool, cotton, and so on. Advances in technology are new
inputs or new ways to turn them into outcomes by improvingtechnology for secu-
rity and expertise. In view of this, agricultural technological progress is focused on
the farm and its potential productivity. However, farms provide crops, livestock, and
also generate possible information. Those data comprise the information records
that create value to the products which leave the farm. Such data are valuable for all
those who contract, process, transport andbethe intermediary or primary customers
of every farm product. Data should not only be generated and connected but also
required to be trustworthy to have signicance. Blockchain is an invention that inte-
grates the farm closer to the world. It contributes by reducing the cost of transferring
data generated on-farm for off-farm storage and usage [3, 4].
SandeepKumar M (*) · Maheshwari V · Prabhu J · Prasanna M
School of Information Technology and Engineering, Vellore Institute of Technology,
Vellore, TamilNadu, India
R. Jothikumar
Shadan College of Engineering and Technology, Hyderabad, Telangana, India
168
Agriculture is still one of the world’s least digitized sectors. Most of the on-farm
data are problematic to transfer to off-farm as it is not generated or analyzed in a
way that supports trustworthy, economical, and transmission. The low levels of
digitalization in several modern agriculture have a signicant constraint on the agri-
culturedevelopment and efciency to acquire value from information. In all indus-
tries, data is collected, and the information technologies can promote better
agricultural management process that leads to productivityincrease and better out-
comes on farms. Moreover, digitalization and information technology have added
into the value equation of the specic quality of agricultural commodities [4].
Commodity grade, quantity and quality measures, compliance with standards and
rules, safety information, legal properties, provenance, and authenticity are the
characteristics of a certain quality. Those information characteristics and features
of all input on the price of the agricultural commodity. The lack of transpar-
encyallow a product to market at full information price, as does ambiguity about
data quality. It is expensive to create and attach data and information. However, it is
nancially benecial to the level that data are useful for downstream users and
gradually for customers to identify product attributes. It is too expensive to build
trust or show the nature of the data. The quantity of data generated, condence in
the data given in proportion to the cost of processing the data on the eld, and the
desire to pay for downstream customers.
Agrarian supply chains are the most difcult and complicated with a few excep-
tions like the local farmer’s market. Agriculture is a competitive eld; most of the
production takes place over an industrial level. Itis sold into the market around the
world due to various rationality and seasonality. Agriculture is often processed and
combined, which needs to be treated carefully. It is mostly produced from different
locations with signicant variations in quality due to changes in small producers. The
majority of agricultural products may be price variant in ways that are hard to ana-
lyze. For thiskind of cause, the information about food products, traceability, trans-
parency of all addressing and processing, as well as compliance with the set of rules
and regulations in the supply chain at all stages itis essential to certify the quality,
safety, and value of agronomic yields. Thesevalue criteria progressively minimize
the problem of digital information, formation, and trust. Then blockchain technology
could be a critical infrastructure element in the forthcoming agricultural supply chain.
2 Use Case ofBlockchain inAgriculture
2.1 Crop andFood Production
The catering demands in a growing population, food with limited assets, while
reducing the impact on the environment, maximization of consumer service,
accountability in the supply chain, and promising farmers reasonable prots.
Although, controlling climate complexities presents many difculties in enhancing
Sandeep Kuma r M et al.
169
the income, if it is favored. Blockchain combined with IoT transforms the food
processing sector, including producers to manufacturers, and food product distribu-
tors. The blockchain was built to make agriculture competitive by leveraging farm
services such as water, workers, and fertilizer with a better solution[3, 4] hasshown
in Fig.1.
2.1.1 Blockchain Transformation Befalls Based onFour Steps
a)Generate Data Using IoT Device
By 2050, the global population is estimated to hit 9.6 billion. The agricultural indus-
try implement IoT tools and sensors to support the rising population. A device is
built-in IoT-compatible, smart farming to keep a close eye on farmer’s eld through
sensors (Humidity, light, soil moisture, pH, and temperature). IoT sensors and
devices produce data that might help the farmers bewell-concerned about the crop's
growth. The information obtained from IoT devices should rst be processed before
data is saved.
b)Cleaning andEnrich theCollected Data
Once the accumulated information is stored on the ledger, it must be organized and
recognized. Data enhancement is performed to add additional value to boost the
source of knowledge acquired. The next two steps to verify the data are ltered until
it is stored on the distributed storage platform.
Block Chain
transformation in
Agriculture
Crop and Food Production
Generate data using IOT,cleaning
the collected data, Produce more
data insight ML, Data save on the BC
Weather station sends vital data to the
Blockchain,Preventive measures are
taken by farmers, Rapid application for
agricultural subsidies
Stakeholder will share each process
of food productionc,Auditors can
effectively conduct audits
Controlling Weather Crisis
Managing Agriculture Finance
Fig. 1 Blockchain transformation
Applying Blockchain in Agriculture: A Study on Blockchain Technology, Benets…
170
By Adding Meta-Information
Timestamp, demographic, and type details should be applied to the data to allow it
more accessible.
Make Data Ready forCompliance
Saving data on the blockchain will not indicate compliance. Instead, it makes the
regulation of enforcement quite transparent. Agreement helps to ensure that per-
sonal information connected with data gathered from the IoT device is secured and
meets safety measures.
c)Produce Data More Insight withMachine Learning
Machine learning is used to obtain valuable information from the data produced by
sensors. Predictive models can control several rare use cases like crop quality rec-
ommendation, identication, yield prediction, demand prediction, and automated
crop growth factor. From the knowledge obtained from machine learning algo-
rithms, both farmers and investors can producegrowth in the irrigation system.
d)Data Saved ontheBlockchain
The high-value data collected from machine learningis stored in IPFS (Interplanetary
le system), a distributed storage platform that represented, hashed, and stored on
the blockchain. In contrast to the previous method for storing crucial data on the
centralized server that has the potential of a solitary point of failure, in blockchain
the data is scattered through each node inside the network, prohibiting centralized
authorities to monitor the system. The data seized in the blockchain drive to stimu-
late smart contracts to make guidelines that have been determined. Smart contracts
allow data to be exchanged and stored in blockchain among the various stakeholders
in the system. Although the information is available to any investor in the agricul-
tural market, the efciency of crop or food production is transparent.
2.2 Controlling Weather Crisis
Farmers typically experience uncertain weather conditions while planting different
varieties of crops. However, weather predication and tracking are vital for the pres-
ervation of vegetables. For example, some of the plants cultivated in the US could
not handle ooding due to heavy spring rains. The oxygen content exceeds zero,
which makes it impossible for plants to carry out life-supporting activities like water
intake, root development, and breathing. Furthermore, lack of transparency
Sandeep Kuma r M et al.
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will leads to uncertain and high price rise in the current food chain platforms.
Consumers have no awareness, once the crops struggle from poor weather condi-
tions, resulted in price increases. When blockchaincan produce traceability, farm-
ers and stakeholders can know knowledge about price variance in the food
distribution sector. Since the licensed entities can monitor climatic conditions from
the blockchain ledger, farmers can obtain crop insurance compensation through the
smart contract. They are three essential step processes that proceed with weather
control for the agricultural eld based on blockchain.
2.2.1 Weather Station Sends Vital Data totheBlockchain
Smart agriculture allows farmers to recognize the conduct of the crop by applying
sensors and mapping areas. Agricultural weather stations in farms may provide
valuable information like soil temperature, air temperature, wetness in the leaves,
rainfall, wind intensity, relative humidity temperature, atmospheric pressure, wind
speed, and direction. All the above parameters are calculated, stored, and saved in
the blockchain that helps the farmers and other authorized organizations to have
transparent connections to it.
2.2.2 Preventive Measures Are Taken by Farmers
By collecting the data produced by weather stations, farmers can make accurate
farming decisions. For instance, if you know that it will rain heavily in the coming
2days, it will help you in getting what you want in progress.
2.2.3 Rapid Application forAgricultural Subsidies
In case of loss during a weather disaster, farmers can claim crop insurance immedi-
ately through blockchain. The transparent and immutable conduct of the blockchain
allows insurance andother approved entities to securely access data captured by the
smart weather stations. They may ask the blockchain directly to acquire the relevant
data using smart contracts. After acknowledgment of an insurance claim, farmers
receive the required amount in their appropriate wallets automatically. A blockchain-
enabled solution can support farmers to get payment fast and seamlessly.
2.3 Managing Agricultural Finance
Some of the issues with formal sustainable development and smallholders are insuf-
cient transparency, credit history, and complexities in contract compliance. The
lack of affordable to thenancial sector help can impact agricultural value chains;
Applying Blockchain in Agriculture: A Study on Blockchain Technology, Benets…
172
as producers, we cannotoptimize their supplies. Buyersare overwhelmed by dif-
culties to promise a sufcient quantity of goods. The nancial rms allow small-
scale farmers to spend on agriculture and help to alleviate funding limitations.
Blockchain adds consistency to the agriculture nance cycle by transparency and
accessibility of decentralized regulations.
2.3.1 Stakeholder Will Share each Process ofFood Production
Whenever a contract happens, it is recorded in the blockchain, which allows all
concerned parties to access through transaction transparency. The sharing of valu-
able information at each stage of food processing will make the whole process fair
and equal.
2.3.2 Auditors Can Effectively Conduct Audits
Blockchain can operate as a form of authentication for recorded transactions, as it
can store data safe and secure. Rather than asking farmers or retailers to apply audit
nancial reports, the auditors may personally verify the transactions through block-
chain ledgers. Automatically generated auditing process provides cost-effective.
Instead of performing evaluations at the end of the year, audit services will also be
capable of carrying out audits during the year. Blockchain will enable the random-
ized analysis to replace by auditors, making it much easier to examine every single
payment.
3 Technology ofBlockchain inAgriculture
Based on the stages of economic growth, people worldwideare genuinely interested
in the transfer of value. This transfer of value allows individuals to exchange prod-
ucts and services and to acquire productive assets and savings for their welfare.
Distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) have been implemented to reduce the vola-
tility during the value of the exchange. DLTs allow higher productivity, account-
ability, and quality control in the agriculture and food industry for the transfer of
value and resources. A blockchain is an electronically developed real-time ledger
for a particular data package available to all stakeholders and protected from any
manipulation of data. The blockchain data is stored as blocks. Throughout the agri-
culture and food value chain, a blockchain controls the origin of a food commodity,
monitors real-time product data, and executes agricultural and food transfer. Such
advantages are easy and cheap food batch prompt for an emergency, reliability of
the entire product condition record, enhanced customer interest, satisfaction, fairer
prices, authorized sellers, and excellent management of compliance.
How to utilize Blockchain in Agriculture Domain?
Sandeep Kuma r M et al.
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Blockchain technology belongs to Industry 4.0, which appliesto automation and
data transfer in the development cycle. Industry 4.0 combines cyber-physical sys-
tems, cloud computing, IoT, and cognitive computing. The growth in cryptocurren-
cies like bitcoin is increasing prominence for blockchain technology. While the rst
use of blockchain is in cryptocurrency, it has enormous potential for other transac-
tions. In one of the sectors, blockchain can be used in agriculture.
3.1 Signicant Usage ofBlockchain withAgriculture
3.1.1 Ensure Food Safety
To achieve food safety in the supply chain, blockchain technology can be utilized.
Blockchain technologies strengthen traceability and accountability to identify weak
and week processes in the agricultural supply chain [5, 6]. It assures that the optimal
standards from farms to the store are maintained. The capability to trace food prod-
ucts source is vital in the context of a food safety epidemic. Industry regulators can
quickly identify the contaminant source and meaning of affected goods [6]. Early
recognition of the potentially contaminated source will allow food industries to
pivot dramatically into action to prevent diseases and save lives. Such a prompt
response will contribute to constraining food waste and saving money by cutting
nancial implications. Farmers, consumers, and businesses like IBM, Walmart have
started working on food safety using blockchain technology.
3.1.2 Traceability inAgricultural Products
Traceability promotes trust and condence for retailers and customers about the
product. When the complete agricultural supply chain is integrated into the environ-
ment driven by blockchain from product registration, transaction, and transport,
then consumers will check that the item they obtain is precise, what they paid for.
Each phase of the transaction is registered in the blockchain. Each statement by a
supplier about the source of its items could be veried by observing an item’s prog-
ress from the farmer to a level in which the stock has arrived, thereby eliminating
concerns of mischaracterization. From a consumer’s perspective, a transparently
distributed ledger would consider them optimistic in thefood production source and
quality[7]. By observing the food supply chain, consumers would be more informed
about the origin of their products and production dates.Thequality of the product
development, start-ups like provenance leverage blockchain to demonstrate in spe-
cic termsto sources of their food supplies. Provenance uses blockchain to protect
and monitor its food supply chains and to make it public so that all stakeholders in
the supply chain are involved in the process. Provenance employs the ledger to gen-
erate detailed reports of materials, supply chains, and goods, thereby providing the
consumers additional clarity about the quality and source. The start-up offers the
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174
customer a completely transparent record in the form of a real-time data repository.
It makes customers every step in the process of the product. For instance, we can see
the current product location, owner, and theproduct's duration for the specic group
of people.
3.1.3 Mitigation ofFood Fraud
The traceability and subsequent accountability of blockchain models play a signi-
cant role in preventing food fraud arising predominantly on inaccurate labeling.
When the demand for antibiotics, herbal and GMO food develops, misleading
advertising is ubiquitous. However, blockchain technology and IoT allow the entire
supply chain to be controlled effectively. Even the small payment in farms, facto-
ries, or warehouses could be tracked, and information is shared across the supply
chain using IoT devices like sensors and RFID tags [8, 9]. Blockchain will protect
millions of dollars from large distribution companies by ensuring that productivity
decreases fraud cases in hundreds of interactions among the supply chain.
3.1.4 Manage Transaction Cost andCompetitive Marketing
Blockchain technology decreases trading costs and helps at reasonable prices. It
facilitates product buyers to negotiate with their suppliers directly and transactions
through mobile transfer. Therefore, it is easier for buyers and suppliers to obtain
equal prices for their agricultural goods. The farmer receives a reasonable return of
farming products, and the seller pays a reasonable price for the agricultural products
delivered. The retailer saves muchmoney since the technology removes agents and
intermediaries. Eventually, blockchain technologies help farmers and suppliers to
validate their incentives on other agricultural commodities[10]. Blockchain tech-
nology contributes to decreasing transaction costs for agrarian products resulting
from the extensively fragmented market. The farm product industry depends heav-
ily on the direct personal experience of a party in the supply chain until you can trust
them to do business. The assurance and transparency havegenerated by the ledger,
accessible to all parties toremoved or decreasedeach party's need to access seper-
ately its worthiness and its ability to implement contract. Those trading in the agri-
cultural product will do business without having a broker trust.
3.1.5 Best Price andPayment Options
Theapplicationof blockchain technologywouldallow agri-participants to deliver
fast payment options at a lower cost. Globally, farmers facesignicant delays in
releasing payments from various national agriculture boards for their products:
additional farmer’s frustration due to the expensive nature payment method like
wire transfers. Blockchain can tackle some of these redundancies. Some developers
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have already programmed the blockchain-based application to peer-to-peer trans-
fers that secure, cheap, and virtually instant. By using smart contracts, payments are
automatically activated once the buyer determines that specic requirements have
been satised[11].
3.2 Blockchain intheFood Industry
In reality, information and communication technology(ICT) play a substantial part
in improving the applications of the agriculture and food industries. ICT facilitates
e-farming, whichencourages market productivity, food security, health and reduces
volatility and uncertainties. E-agriculture depends on empowering agriculture to
exchange knowledge to make farms better, competitive, safe, and prevent potential
consequences. Blockchain can be a better option in the sharing of knowledge.
Attempting to apply Blockchain to e-agriculture frameworks supports to build trust
between stakeholders who contribute their experience and the use of e-agriculture
servers offers to boost their farming[12]. These services can maximize cost ef-
ciency; strengthen food safety, and decrease ambiguity and risks.
In contrast to primary agricultural activities, cryptographic protocols can be used
in farming-related elds like the bee sector to track bee adulteration practices,
endorse smart pollination contracts, and strengthen the beehive insurance indus-
try[13]. Blockchain can be used with ICT in the food industry to promise food
safety. For instance, RFID is used to develop a quality control system for the agri-
food supply chain[11].
The system can afford reliable information over sensitive data collection and
interaction procedures in the agricultural supply chain to maintain food security in
all stages of distribution, manufacturing, storage, supply, and marketing. Besides
RFID, blockchain can be incorporated into certain IoT technologies and advanced
ideas for food protection like hazard analysis and critical control points to manage
and promise food safety and quality in the supply chain [14].
3.3 Challenges inFood Industry by Using Blockchain
1. The problem is that the data is as accurate as given by the data provider. In a
specic supply chain, there will be one or more “untrustworthy” data providers.
It suggests that blockchain is possibly ineffective to prevent food fraud unless all
data are examined appropriately. Blockchain is still far from essential, but
incomplete or uncontrolled data limits its feasibility. To mitigate such limita-
tions, we should not build an IoT, blockchain, and smart contract in solitary
connement, but should also build a social–technical background. For instance,
when procedural food inspection is inuenced by persistent, local corruption.
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2. Industrial sectors like supermarkets and hotels are chronically marginalized and food
traceability schemes seems to be expensive without enhancing prots. As an out-
come, the strong motive is often not essential for investing in this kind of advance-
ment. Big supermarkets like Walmart have the assets and capacity to interact with
regulars and inspectors. Still, beyond that, individual market players often build pro-
cesses designed to address the demands of minimal adherence and no longer.
4 Application ofBlockchain inAgriculture
4.1 Smart Farming
Several smart farming models focused on combining the application of IoT and block-
chain technologies are introduced and deployed. Lin etal. (2018) developed a block-
chain and IoT-based smart agriculture system. The crucial part of the system is a
platform to create trust between players through blockchain. Agents are associated
with the product from its farm to sales that process the storage of data in blockchain
by smartphones. Blockchain-based ICT e-agriculture model is used at local and
regional scale, in which each individual is having real-time aquatic quality data stored
in the blockchain [11]. Most of the enterprises have started giving dedicated attention
to blockchain applications to smart agriculture. For instance, Fliament offers strate-
gies to interact with physical objects and nodes over smart agriculture technology. It
is designed based on penny-size hardware used with previous machines or equipment
linked with a USB port for efciently interacting with the blockchain. Blockchain is
used by farmlands to produce smarter and effective farming practices. For instance, In
Taiwan, the farmland irrigation organization utilizesblockchain to collect data and
provide public relationships [15]. Each organization acts as a “public legal person”
and exposes its data and information regarding irrigation management to the block-
chain, and the public usesthose data. Transparency conveys thepeople's contribution
to irrigation management and improves its determination to strengthen water supplies.
The statistical database generated by blockchain is used to direct decision-making in
the building and maintenance of irrigation canals[11]. Smart farming with blockchain
will not reduce, if not improve, the technological limit toward involvement of the
farmers [16]. It is primarily driven to accumulate accurate data from massive farmers
rather than small farmers for uploading to the blockchain.
4.2 Food Supply Chain
Through rising globalization and increased market competition, food supply chains
are becoming more diverse and broader than before. There are still prevalent issues
with food supply chains such as food traceability, quality, food assurance, food
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safety, and inefciency in the supply chain, which creates signicant risks to society
the economy, and food security. From the producer’s point of view, the practice of
blockchain technology supports to create a trust association with customers and
strengthen product legitimacy by transparently delivering specic product details in
the blockchain. Enterprises are enriched capable of gaining the quality of their com-
modities, and therefore, grow their protability. This will make it impossible for
low-quality and fraud suppliers to remain on the market and push all suppliers to
boost the standard of commodities in the agronomic and food industries.
From the viewpoint of customers, blockchain provides accurate and authentic
knowledge about how food is generated and taken out of circulation. It will address
the apprehensions of customers about food safety, quality, and environmental
friendliness of food[17]. The use of blockchain allows customers to associate with
producers as consumers can comprehend the process of food production more com-
fortably with detailed information. It facilitates consumers by minimizing limita-
tions to the trade of goods to improve the relationship, thus boost consumer faith
and trust in food safety.
From the viewpoint of regulatory agencies, blockchain delivers transparent and
consistent information for them to execute competent and active regulations[18].
Blockchain can control product details from the origin to the trade store. It offers a
convenient, irreversible way of loading data obtained from the beginning of the sup-
ply chain. For example, DNA of livestock animals, pesticide residues of grain or
vegetables. Such data can be validated and veried by any individual involved in the
supply chain of the product[10]. It can be quite costly to acquire these data on all
products but can be performed on samples.
Several approaches driven by blockchain technology to boost the traceability of
agricultural products were developed. Tian (2016) proposed a traceability system
for the agricultural food supply chain by Radiofrequency Identication (RFID), a
non-contact automatic identication system[10]. It can monitor products through
the supply chain using accurate details. Using blockchain ensures that the system’s
output, procedure, store, and supply records are accurate and truthful. Blockchain-
based traceability system which directly connected to IoT devices by providing
virtual production and consumption data. The traceability is accomplished by ethe-
reum, and the hyper ledger saw the tooth blockchain platform [19]. The current
blockchain technology is still in the early stages of development within the food
supply chain. At the same time, it has several unstable and incomplete points in the
practice of deploying blockchain technology. Besides, the application of blockchain
technology involves signicant participation and involvement of stakeholders in the
food supply chain that is notable for performing its functional role. Due to its func-
tionality, accessibility transparency, and decentralization, blockchain technology
allows controlling of food quality information across the supply chain. It supports
to prevent fraud in food procurement and decrease the cost of maintaining the food
supply chain. It helps entire stakeholders like manufacturers, customers, and gov-
ernment regulatory authorities.
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178
4.3 Limitations
Blockchain technology allows knowledge of traceability in the food supply chain
and strengthens food safety. It maintains safe data storage and management, facili-
tating the production and application of data-driven technologies for smart agricul-
ture and smart index-based agricultural policies. It can also reduce the cost of
transactions that will boost farmer access to the market and produce new streams of
revenue. Despite signicant potential benets, key constraints arise for the deploy-
ment of blockchain technology in agriculture enterprises. Furthermore, more analy-
sis is required on the participant's incentive to provide a blockchain leader with
legitimate and accurate information. It may be vital for smallholder agriculture. The
knowledge produced in the agricultural process is distributed and controlled by
individual farmers. The implications of blockchain technologies for farmers may
rely on the size of the farm. On one side, smaller farms might quickly become
involved in the blockchain-based insurance industry. Another side, it could be more
efcient to capture and incorporate on-farm data for larger farms.
4.4 Challenges ofDeploying Innovation inAgriculture
andSpecic Steps Required Follow toOvercome them
The agriculture supply chain seems to be more complicated and volatile than most
other supply chains. In contrast, agricultural production relies on weather, diseases,
and pesticides, which are hard to track and control. The scarcity of traceability in
the agriculture supply chain contributes to slow economic and often complicate
process of transactions. Furthermore, counterfeits can occur at any point in the sup-
ply chain and can lead to harmful consequences to all business participants, govern-
ment, and customers; hasshown in Fig. 2.
Blockchain projects will minimize the risk of counterfeit products and improve
the agriculture efciency based on blockchain by ensuring transparency and remov-
ing intermediary connections through the agricultural value chain. Moreover, by
mitigating uncertainly and allowing retail investors to trust decentralized ledger and
smart contract to offer a massive opportunity for competitive business involvement
between smallholders and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). The fun-
damental challenge for agriculture supply chains occurs in the transportation of
goods. While transaction information can be identied from the ngerprints associ-
ated with each payment, the transfer of the physical product from farm to consumer
through a supply chain takes an even unchangeable commodity cycle. Technologies
to locate physical goods across the supply chain for agriculture based on QR codes
to the packing products, advanced radio frequency identication (RFID) chips,
RFID application, and RFID supply chain in agriculture, Crypto- anchor technology
for agriculture, and Near eld communication technology (NFC)[20].
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5 Future ofBlockchain inAgriculture
Using blockchain, we can solve problems for helpless farmers. According to the
World Bank report says that “Agriculture help to alleviate hunger, boost prots and
enhance food health for 80% of the impoverished world population living in rural,
functioning predominantly in agriculture”. Blockchain technology can be exploited
by organizations, governments, non-prot organizations to tackle global challenges
for helpless farming. Ultimately, blockchain is a digital ledger for keeping decen-
tralized information that provides access for numerous entities throughout who
interact in the platform. The data contained in this ledger is timestamped and will
not be in any scenario, been changed. Information is static. The most unexpected
distinction of blockchain is its capability to prevent the participation of agents into
the system by developing a direct communication network among farmers and
consumers.
The lack of agents within the network has several benets like better farm
income, less travel expenditure, greater exibility, and cost-effectiveness in the agri-
cultural logistics chain. The deployment of a blockchain-enabled platform for farm-
ers to export agricultural products will optimize the entire agriculture supply chain
and incorporate producers into the global economy. The platform will empower
farmers and allow them to become a community and enter the market without any
intermediary involvement. It spreads the inuence of MNCs who are usually the
primary buyers, xes prices, and recommends farmers to grow in a given season.
Through blockchain, community-driven producers and small companies can benet
by putting their mark on the world agriculture sector. Smart contract –distribution
and tokenized shareholding will enhance community agriculture's efciency by cre-
ating direct communication among farmers and consumers. The additional benet
of the cryptocurrency trading would also make the helpless farmers relativelysta-
ble. Blockchain is driven by the ability to enhance fundamental rights and
Fig. 2 Negative effect on counterfeit products in Agriculture
Applying Blockchain in Agriculture: A Study on Blockchain Technology, Benets…
180
innovation. We have already explored solutions to the lack of monitoring in fertil-
izers and pesticides in the farms and fraud onfarmers or agent's price of goods.
Blockchain combined with IoT developmentcan be a one-stop solution to the
problems of product control from seed to food supply. It can be used to track every-
thing’s including individual livestock on dairy farms, to specic farms to all areas at
a low cost. The farmers could follow their farm with environmental factors like
humidity and temperature at any time on a blockchain platform. Besides, block-
chain can be used for the complicated land registry procedure in the agriculture
supply chain for poor farmers. Often small farmers are incompetent and subjected
to fraud while processing the property. Blockchain can be revolutionary in the cost-
intensive data collection process. The poor helpless farmers depend heavily on sub-
sidies; however, the amount of cash that reaches individual helpless farmers is a real
mystery. Blockchain guarantees reliable data management to secure that the
assigned quantity arrives at the hands of farmers who are urgentlyneed it.
6 Conclusion
Blockchain technology initially developed to generate internet-native money, the
technology behind cryptocurrency, andhave many comprehensive applications to
deliver digital infrastructure to next generation for agricultural trade and global sup-
ply chain. Blockchain technology inuences any enterprise that comprises digital
data, and agriculture is no exception. The agricultural sector would benet by incor-
porating blockchain technology to the point that operational and trading aspects can
be digitized and then transmitted as digital infrastructure to blockchain technology.
Furthermore, such benet is achieved across the value chain, and for individual
farms to be nancially protable, will rely on organizing the adoption of new tech-
nology within the sector. AtEarly-stage development technology, the relative unfa-
miliarity in technology among parties, and required to coordinate adoptions are
some vital challenges faced certain aspects. The new technology may be challeng-
ing, complicated, and disruptive. The possible complications that it solves are mas-
sive, and if it is explained, it could contribute toward signicant benets to
agricultural producers by increasing the margin of prices. It could be a strong reason
to suggest the agricultural sector to invest in blockchain technology.
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Applying Blockchain in Agriculture: A Study on Blockchain Technology, Benets…
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