Implementing the IOST Blockchain in Improving the Nigerian Rice Production

The Nigerian government has taken steps to improve its economy by boosting its agricultural Industry. One of the steps the government took was to ban the importation of some staple foods including rice. The idea behind placing a ban on the country’s number one household meal was to help improve the production of rice in the country. However, how can introducing the IOST blockchain to Agriculture in Nigeria help transform rice production in the country?

As it is, Nigeria has to battle with a lot of factors that will bring its self-produced rice from its farmers to the consumers. Most of the country’s rice is imported from Thailand and India with about US$1.65 billion (₦0.59trn) in 2019 alone making Nigeria the world’s second-largest importer of rice after China. To reduce its importation rate, the country had to place a ban on rice importation. However, there are still some people who smuggle rice across the county’s borders thereby defeating the purpose of establishing the ban. However, by implementing the IOST blockchain technology into its agricultural industry, the Nigerian economy can see a lot of change.

How can IOST Blockchain Aid Rice Procurement Tracking?

One of the biggest challenges facing the agriculture sector is the tracking and payment for the delivery of agricultural products. Usually, farmers have to rely on third-parties for the coordination and delivery of their products. It is even harder when it comes to rice production as most farmers do not have the right equipment to process the rice. So, they either sell to rice manufacturing plants or take the rice produce to milling plants. The involvement of multiple agents to the rice processing food chain makes it more expensive, time-consuming and difficult to track products that are below standard.

By adopting the IOST blockchain, Dapps can be created that will act as ledgers monitoring the supply chain from farmer to milling plants down to distributors and finally the consumers. The entire rice production process will be broken down into a distributed ledger. Since the blockchain enables auditability, farmers can relate directly with retailers and there will be no need for excessive intermediaries. Also, commodity buyers get to interact with the farmers directly reducing the time it takes to process fees.

Increase in Rice Crop Production

The aim of integrating the blockchain into rice farming is to encourage mass production which will result in an improvement of the nation’s economy. By integrating the IOST blockchain with technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), farmers in the region can get information on important factors that affect rice production such as water level, soil temperature, fertilizer details, etc. these details will be collected and sent to the blockchain which would trigger the execution of a smart contract that will help improve the quality of rice production

Create a Better Distribution Chain Model of Business

Currently, after harvesting the rice, miners have to sell to big manufacturing plants. However, most of these farmers do not have access to these manufacturing plants and have to sell to middlemen who in turn sell to these rice milling plants. Using the IOS tokens, farmers can begin a crowdfunding model where investors can fund for farmers to get adequate transportation and easy to access milling plants thereby improving the production. Investors can be reward with IOS tokens at the end of the maturation period. Also, a blockchain-based rice production system can enable all the rice farmer to record the harvest in real-time thereby encouraging accurate data collation.

Furthermore, there is a lack of transparency when it comes to getting financial aid. Small scale farmers may find it difficult to secure credit and this has created a problem of the lack of financial inclusion with farmers. A blockchain-based solution can empower farmers through a decentralized funding system thereby allow for a fair and transparent disbursement of funds. Also, getting credit facilities in rural areas can be a tough job. However, with a crypto credit system linked to crowdfunding, farmers can get aid from investors across the world.

Reduces the problem of smuggling

The rice ban caused a spike in the price of rice with most Nigerians preferring foreign rice to the locally made rice thereby leading to an increase in smuggling. With the help of the IOST blockchain, traceability will be improved and the government can track products made in a country. This will help reduce smuggling activities as you can track products from field to table. Also, farmers will be able to mitigate losses during rice storage and production as data of available rice in the country will be accessible.

Also utilizing the blockchain will be able to mitigate corruption in the Nigerian Customs office. If rice products imported into the country are properly registered on the blockchain, cases of corrupt officials selling off seized goods to the public will reduce. Also, it will reduce the waste resulting from the customs office keeping seized rice products until they go bad.

Improve Tracking of Storage Facilities

One of the biggest challenge rice farmers and middlemen face is the problem of storage. If there is a way to track available storage facilities, rice farmers can easily send their goods to these facilities and reduce having their products go bad. If there is a payment and tracking Dapps for these farmers, they can easily track available storage facilities, pay directly and have these facilities pick up and store their produce prior to when they will be processed or sold making the process seamless.

In Conclusion

The IOST blockchain was created to host mainstream applications and handle millions of transactions quickly and securely. By applying IOST to the Nigerian Rice situation, the Nigerian government will be able to reduce loss, waste and improve its exports. On the side of the farmers, IOST with its unique technologies such as Proof of Believability (POB) and Efficient Distributed Sharding (EDS) will help them get a better system. Farmers can track their products easily, eliminate the excess use of middlemen, and improve credit and storage facilities.