The 21st-century’s revolutionary technology, blockchain is adopted by the majority of market participants and businesses in almost every sector. This article highlights the blockchain technology’s collaboration with the agriculture sector.
Talking about numbers and facts, according to the Markets and Market, B2B consulting service providing firms, it is believed that $133 million was the estimated size of the blockchain agriculture and food supply chain market in 2020.
However, as per the reports, the agriculture and food supply chain market size is believed to increase at a CAGR of 48.1% to reach $948 million by 2025. In 2017 it was predicted that the agriculture market would reach $430 million in 2023 from $41.2 million.
Source: Market and Markets
Blockchain technology helps agriculture businesses in reducing waste and ensuring safer transactions. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FCO), one-third of the food produced globally is wasted during processing. Meanwhile, blockchain technology plays an important role in controlling loss.
Additionally, blockchain technology helps monitor plant information, such as tracking the plant’s journey after leaving the farm, seed quality and crop growth.
The leading blockchain startups in the agricultural industry are as follows:
- AgriChain
Agriculture is a software program founded in 2015 by Caile Ditterich and Sam Webb. The software application is widely used in reducing unnecessary paperwork and providing services such as supply chain tracking and information, helps reduce risk, broker services, stock management and many more.
AgriChain is designed for farmers, grain traders, storage operators, stakeholders, brokers, logistics and many more.
- AgriDigital
AgriDigital is an integrated, cloud-based software platform focused on grain management. The agriculture-based platform mentioned that AgriDigital digitized grain management for almost 11,600 agriculture-based businesses all around the world.
AgriDigital was founded by Ben Reid, Bob McKay and Emma Weston in 2015. According to AgrDigital official site, it has 21.05 k active users at the time of writing. Farmers, traders, site operators and brokers take advantage of this outstanding platform.
- AgriLedger
AgriLedger is an agricultural supply chain-focused blockchain/DLT systems provider. Genevieve Leveille founded it on April 10, 2016. It is designed to provide an information-rich flow of data among farmers, traders, consumers, wholesalers, retailers and many more.
Agriledger offers services like traceability, information, immutable data, digital identification, record keeping and financial services. It has been mentioned on the official site, “Without financial access, many agricultural providers lose up to 50% of potential income. Farmers can prove their identity and income to gain access to financial institutions.”
Implications for the Agriculture Industry
This is the industry that brings food to our plate, and it’s high time for the industry for a paradigm shift. Blockchain technology provides the required configurations and potential for dramatic growth and change in its demographics, from what crop to sow in which soil, as per certain temperatures and other factors, to seeds and equipment used. Technology can also help in facilitating sales and storage.