Blockchain has been one of the most widely discussed technologies in recent years following its debut more than a decade ago in the form of Bitcoin — a transparent, decentralized system for peer-to-peer electronic cash. Today, its revolutionary applications and pragmatic solutions are showing strong signs of transforming every industry, be it banking, real estate, law, education, healthcare, or even the agri-food sector. For many enterprise organizations, the significant advantages of using blockchain are the evolution of new business models and value chains, greater security, and lower risks, and greater speed compared to existing traditional systems, as revealed by Deloitte’s 2019 Global Blockchain Survey.
Although the application of blockchain in agriculture is still in its nascent stage, it holds immense promise as a foundational technology that redefines business models and transactions at all levels of the agri-ecosystem. The potential for blockchain in agriculture has been endlessly discussed and debated, and some of the use-cases of this technology include:
- Optimizing crop production using data collected at the farm level
- Facilitating better access to financial services for farmers through increased transparency
- Establishing traceability along the agri-food supply chain to ensure sustainable farming practices and for better quality control
- Improving logistics and reducing transaction costs by making supply chains more efficient
- Maintaining a ledger of land registrations that are incorruptible, reliable, and transparent
What Constitutes The Core Of Blockchain Technology?
Blockchain indeed presents a novel approach to storing, managing, and transmitting data worldwide. While the advantages of applications include accuracy, efficiency, reliability, traceability, transparency, incorruptibility, scalability, security, and data decentralization, the applications become null and void without quality data in the first place.
In all of the above-mentioned and numerous other use cases, blockchain directly or indirectly depends on big data collected through one or more technology solutions. The better the quality of data that can be made available, the more reliable and efficient blockchain will be. This, beyond question, makes data the one true king in today’s world. But, where do you get quality data from particularly in the agri-food sector, given that the existing infrastructure is still inadequate and there are significant issues around interoperability of data?
Blockchain-based systems are not stand-alone and require predefined elements known as oracles to serve as trusted third-party sources of information. Software solutions (such as big-data applications) and hardware solutions (satellites, drones, or IoT devices) are two of the different kinds of oracles that facilitate the blockchain to access data from outside of their network. Undeniably, setting up and implementing a complete system designed around blockchain, along with the supporting oracles, requires considerable human and economic resources — a privilege that large enterprises and corporate organizations enjoy. So how does blockchain really benefit the 500 million smallholder farmers around the world, a majority of whom have poor or no access to mobile technology?
Cropin as an Enabler Of Blockchain
Cropin, a pioneer and a global provider of agritech solutions, re-imagines the world of agriculture with data. Cropin’s award-winning farm data management solution SmartFarm helps to capture accurate ground truth from farmlands big and small, combining it with weather- and satellite-based intelligence and translating it into actionable insights. These insights, collected at all stages of the cultivation cycle, facilitate agri-focused organizations to monitor farms in real-time and effectively drive their initiatives around predictability, traceability, sustainability, and compliance. The potpourri of data captured at each stage of the cultivation cycle empowers producers and other key stakeholders to arrive at solutions for problems specific to a certain point along the agri supply chain.
In order to reach out to as many smallholder farmers as possible in a cost-effective manner, Cropin’s platform makes effective use of mobile technology to connect with even the most remotely-located farmers in rural regions. The platform has successfully onboarded close to 2.1 million farmers around the globe and continues to advance towards its ambitious goal of impacting 20 million farmers. Cropin is set to accomplish this by collaborating with agribusinesses, government entities, and development agencies that engage with millions of farmers in numerous countries.
With this approach to farm digitization, farmers can contribute to the ground-level data collection from the source of the agri value chain without having to take the economic burden of buying, implementing, and maintaining a digital system. Cropin provides the precise technological framework that ensures the effective gathering of critical data points and helps make sense of an ever-expanding data pool that is available in the agri-ecosystem.
Cropin’s platform is versatile, in that it can be configured to meet the requirements of diverse geographies and unique user requirements while enabling the collection and management of quality data on close to 400 crops and 9400+ crop varieties. Furthermore, the platform leverages this data to establish end-to-end traceability along the supply chain to ensure that the blockchain is as reliable as it gets.
Cropin’s offerings for a blockchain system include:
- An interactive dashboard to keep track of business performance in real-time
- A multilingual application that supports 30+ languages
- Offline functionality in the absence of internet connectivity and auto-sync when online
- Seamless integration with IoT devices and existing ERP systems to deliver actionable and real-time insights
- One-click access to global data and remote visibility of the entire process
- A cloud-based platform for cost-effective scalability across geographies