Some clarifications about use of blockchain for grain trading.
Recently Reuters published an interesting article (here below link) where they were quoting a panel of distinguished experts at the RichComm Global Commodities Outlook conference in Dubai.
The article claimed that blockchain “…also increases transparency, , which is not necessarily a benefit for traders looking to make profits on buying and selling goods.”
Actually it depends on how do you use blockchain technology. For example, our trading platform uses public blockchain (due to it’s decentralisation and better data security then privat ones), but not only zero transaction details is available to public — in addition, we will use an anonymisation tool which will implement different user’s number on the blockchain for every new trade (by default the same number is implemented and you can track it).
Regarding the “…likelihood that producer platforms and consumer platforms could be created, “with no traders in the middle””- contrary to organic grains and other coffee, it is unlikely that traders disappear any time soon in the big bulk grains’ trade, as they are playing a role of logistician (usually you get the best price for ex. for Ukr corn, when you sell it in 60k mt vessel to China and the essence of grain biz is the expertise of rightly mixing different qualities, sometimes from different regions).
Equally it is unlikely, that grain farmers in the world will massively unite and go directly to consumers, bcs for ex. of the collectivisation painful past in Former Soviet Union — they hate it, and bcs it is not their job, which is to produce (of course farmers built a lot of on-farm storage and became smart sellers, but…). France and Germany are among the very few exceptions with long coop traditions.
As for our friend blockchain — there is no doubt, it is bringing so far unseen efficiencies and tools to grain traders and actually empowers smaller and mid-sized ones — to relieve them from many pain points our sector is suffering from.
