How Agricultural Producer Taps Blockchain for Verifiable Record of Supply Chain

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CyberVein

4 min readApr 20, 2020

There are several reasons to implement a smart agriculture solution into local as well as commercial farming. The adoption of the Blockchain and IoT have become common in most industries; the agricultural sphere would certainly not be an exception in this regard.

For example, any producer of olive oil can using blockchain technology to provide traceability for its extra virgin olive oil across different quality assurance checkpoints, including the orchard where the olives were grown, the mill where olives were processes and the facilities where the oil was filtered, bottled, distributed and more.

Starting with its most recent harvest now being bottled, customers of retailers around the world will be able to scan a QR-code on each label, allowing them to view a provenance record. By detailing each step of the product’s journey, consumers can gain peace of mind about the origins of their olive oil and richer insight into its journey and quality checkpoints, and even view images of the fields where the olives were grown.

CyberVein could organize a permissioned blockchain network that provides a more efficient way of working across the food supply chain for farmers, processors, shippers, retailers, regulators and consumers.

The technology can be implemented to address consumer concern about olive oil mislabeling and illicit counterfeit olive oil operations, as well as general confusion about how olive oils are blended.

The blockchain technology can create a verifiable record of where each bottle of olive oil was produced and the methods used. This information can then be shared in near real time with distributors, retailers, and other permissioned members of the company’s supply chain.

CyberVein has done some work related to supply chains, namely the supply chain of seafood products in the food industry. CyberVein developed a blockchain-based solution to a Chinese company in Ningbo province who has a seafood exchange platform for the fishermen and companies or restaurants in the food industry.

Traditionally, when fishing boats go out to sea (in this case the large long-distance fishing boats), they spend up to a month to half a year’s time out at sea, getting a full haul before coming back to the ports. A problem with this is that there is no communication methods out at sea, mobile phones have no signal and internet, only the captain of the boat has a communication device to contact the the people on the land, which was also extremely expensive to use. They would have to return to the ports, count the seafood they’ve caught and store them until they can find buyers. This has incurred huge work load and costs to the fishermen, and there also exists the problem that some seafood products are wasted due to lack of freshness and buyers. The company from Ningbo, partnered with a few companies, utilized the technology of satellite communication, which allowed the fishermen at sea to communicated with the people on the land at anytime, although the data prices is still fairly higher, but better than before. This has allow the seafood exchange platform to acquire the fish data from the fishing boats in real-time. Fishermen are able to register the fish data as soon as the fish was caught, and they are able to find buyers while they are still filling up their load or while returning to the docks, allowing immediate exchange of seafood products for money as soon as they dock at the ports. This has eliminated the time lag between the docking at the port and handing over the goods to the buyer, saving cost and time for both parties.

CyberVein has helped the company to build a blockchain database to store the seafood data as the fishermen are fishing, with the help of the platform company’s image recognition and GPS technologies. The seafood that have been caught on deck can be immediately registered by the image recognition technology, and the data is uploaded to the blockchain. This gives authenticity to the seafood data, as some fishermen might do fraud by providing the wrong information to the buyers through the traditional process. To that end, the GPS technology also register the region in which the seafood is caught, as the region of inhabitant of the fish may vary its price. There is also a time stamp for the seafood caught, because some seasonal seafood products’ prices can vary hugely depending on the time of the year. The companies or restaurants in the food industry, who have joined the exchange platform, can view the data on the blockchain and calculate the appropriate prices for the seafood product they want. All of this can be done while the fishermen are still fishing or on their way back. The blockchain technology has helped the fishermen and the buyers to build trust, achieving a fair price and simplified the process of exchange. In addition, the platform also offer storage services to the fishermen through third-party service providers for seafood products that aren’t sold off immediately, as well as logistics services to deliver the products to the buyers, and the method and time of storage and transportation data is also available to view on the blockchain.

Blockchain technology has help the platform to authenticate the different data available, and has built fundamental trust for thee buyers and fishermen. The cost for the platform to monitor the different processes within this supply chain has been reduced, and the platform has began to attract more buyers, thus growing the business.

How Agricultural Producer Taps Blockchain for Verifiable Record of Supply Chain

Written by Ryan