Major Players Use Blockchain to Streamline Agribusiness' Creaking Supply Chain

Kelly Registration Systems, the software unit for Kelly Products, a US based agribusiness company, announced the launch of their blockchain based platform to increase transparency in the United States meat industry.

"Utilising blockchain technology for our new tracking system gives producers the opportunity to streamline their protein tracking and make it extremely accessible and transparent."

According to Nestle's global head of supply chain, Chris Tyas, the companies agreed that blockchain can help improve safety measures on the condition that industry leaders collaborate.

The transparent, instantly available nature of Blockchain technology can reduce the investigation process to a matter of seconds, potentially halting the current precautionary measures of mass product recall and the culling of huge swathes of livestock.

The startup has built a private blockchain to improve supply chain finance, with over 1300 users and 1.6 million tonnes of grain transacted since December 2016, along with $360 million in grower payments.

Diagram from CSIRO's Data61 unit, illustrating how blockchain could revolutionise supply routes.

In spite of the many positive developments and promising applications of blockchain in agribusiness and food supply sectors, a number of perceived weaknesses in the technology have been pointed out.

Data 61 also said that blockchain could be more expensive than current systems if used to carry out "Smart contracts" due to the well known energy consumption of blockchain technology.

Concerns have also been voiced regarding the technology's reliance on all parties to be actively involved in the supply chain for it to work, meaning that if the input of data breaks down somewhere from farmer to customer, blockchain could fail to live up to its questionable reputation as an all encompassing solution to agribusiness' woes.

In spite of warning about the dangers of potential oversupply of competing platforms that could cause confusion if developers do not coordinate along with the current absence of overarching regulation, Data 61 CEO Adrian Turner said blockchain technology has vast economic potential and is "Here to stay".