Is Your Organic Food Product Actually Organic? Can Blockchain be of Help?

Sofocle
Sofocle Technologies
2 min readFeb 26, 2019

The past few years have witnessed an increasing popularity in organic food items including fruits, vegetables and even grocery items amongst the customers. So, what is organic food and the reason for their surging popularity? Simply put, a food product is organic if it is grown in a farming system that prohibits the usage of chemical fertilizers, artificial additives or GMOs. Rather organic farming relies on crop rotation, plant and animal manure, and pest control using biological pesticides.

Food produced via such methods besides being nutritionally beneficial also ensures conservation of biodiversity. However, with increasing volume of organic products flooding the store shelves, it becomes extremely difficult for the average consumers to sift genuine organic stuff from the ones that are simply cashing in on the trend.

So, how does one ensure whether or not we are consuming authentic chemical free food produce?

While there are several certifying bodies that certifies a farm for producing organic products, it doesn’t assure that particular food product to be 100 percent organic. Also, several miscreants (non-organic farms) are tricking consumers by fraudulently selling their products under a particular label by privately making some sort of financial arrangement.

This calls the need for a technology solution that can help resolve issues in one of the most heavily regulated and consumer-driven food systems in the world. Blockchain — A distributed ledger technology offers the much-required traceability and transparency in an otherwise complex food supply chain by preventing fraudulence and ensuring the authenticity of products to the consumers.

Besides capturing data at every point within the supply chain ecosystem, a cloud and IoT powered Blockchain system also ensures that it is shared amongst every supply chain participant including farmer, manufacturer, supplier, distributor and eventually the consumer. Furthermore, the data immutability element of Blockchain adds an additional level of security that prohibits any sort of fraudulent activity.

In short, introducing Blockchain technology to the organic food value chain will ensure better rewards for producers (farmers) engaging in ethical farming practices while penalizing those following illegal and unethical practices.

Read more on — Blockchain for Food Supply Chain

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Sofocle
Sofocle Technologies

Sofocle (https://www.sofocle.com/) is a Blockchain Company Focussed on Developing Innovative Blockchain Solutions for Finance, Product Supply Chain & Insurance.