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What do producers of pork and beef, food companies and bankers have in common? Some of them are exploring how a relatively new way of storing data, called blockchain, can help their companies and industries.
"Blockchain is really just a database," said Andy Brudtkuhl, director of emerging technology with the National Pork Board. He recently spoke to the participants in a seminar sponsored by the Kansas State University, Kansas Department of Agriculture and Kansas Farm Bureau's Master of Agribusiness program.
Brudtkuhl is studying the impacts and implications of technology applied to the food supply chain and, in particular, how it can benefit pork producers.
Blockchain is a list of digital records, called blocks connected by encryption. Each block contains a string of numbers and letters produced by a mathematical function, called hash-elated cryptography to the previous block, a timestamp and transaction data. By design, it is difficult to change. Once registered, data in a given block can not be changed retroactively without changing the subsequent blocks.
The Blockchain technology was invented in 2008 by an unknown person who used the name Satoshi Nakamoto to act as a public register of bitcoin cryptocurrency transactions, but since then other industries have explored its use.
The blockchain chain works by referring to the hash of the previous block, Brudtkuhl said. There is a certain amount of confidence built because everyone involved has a copy, and the system is designed in such a way that if someone removed a block, it would be easily discovered.
Currently, supply chains are largely dependent on trust, he said, emphasizing that blockchain technology could increase transparency, prevent records from being changed (immutable), increase traceability and improve efficiency.
"Blockchain does not solve the problem, but it only helps the problem," he said, pointing out that Walmart uses blockchain technology to track the leafy greens it buys.
The work could not come at a better time, given that this year two domestic romaine lettuces recall this year due to diseases related to E. coli. The officials found it difficult to trace the lettuce that the sick people to the source. Food travels through a complex system, from the agricultural field to processing, transportation and points of sale before it reaches the consumers' plates. The ability to determine more quickly where lettuce and other foods come from can potentially save time and money for farmers and food businesses and increase buyers' confidence in the products they buy.
In a letter to its suppliers of green leafy vegetables, in September, Walmart said that to increase traceability and food transparency and create shared value for the entire green leafy green, it launched a new Walmart traceability for food enabled blockchain Initiative. The move, the letter says, means "all green leafy vegetable suppliers should be able to track their products on farms (according to the production lot) in seconds, not days".
Brudtkuhl said that Walmart creates rules for other food suppliers, pig producers want to get involved in the discussion.
For traceability from pork to pork chop, the biggest challenge is when pigs go to the processing facility, he said, pointing out that eventually DNA testing could be used.
"At this time, a consumer has no idea what the steps were (a beef) and a producer has no idea where their product ends," said Tyler Lindholm, head of breeding activities with BeefChain, a new " cent "" Supply chain using blockchain technology Lindholm is a Wyoming breeder and president of the Wyoming Blockchain Task Force and is also a representative of the state of Wyoming.
He said he believes that the movement towards the use of this technology should be led by the producer rather than government-led, and that Walmart's move with its suppliers of green-leaved vegetables indicates that it will probably move in that direction. also for its meat suppliers.
These movements will have a cost, Lindholm added, but higher premiums to allow identification of a single animal and ensure traceability of origin allow farmers to receive premium prices for their beef and provides consumers with greater confidence in the meat they consume.
Rachel Gabato, head of products and programs at the New York and San Francisco company, Ripe.io, said some companies are using sensors that capture data along the food supply chain, adding more layers of information, starting with Farmer and up through the collection, transportation, processing and retailing. In this way, it is possible to learn how temperature, for example, affects a product.
If tomatoes go wrong between a farmer's field and a retail store, this emerging technology could make it easier to see, for example, where the temperature inside a truck was lower than the optimal one.
"This is a relatively new technology for the industry (food)," said Gabato, and can help solve problems and lead to fewer fingers.
"We have received many requests from our customers on the blockchain," said Tanner Ehmke, manager of CoBank's Knowledge Exchange, adding that CoBank is investigating the new technology and how it and its customers could use it. CoBank is a lender of agricultural, energy, water and communication companies.
"New technologies continue to offer a more reliable, efficient and secure food system," said Allen Featherstone, head of the Kansas State University Department of Agricultural Economics. "The goal of the seminar was to help demystify blockchain technology.These goals have been achieved.We plan to provide another workshop on an emerging problem in the agricultural and food sector during the autumn of 2019."
Further information on the Kansas State University Master of Agribusiness program is available at https://mab.k-state.edu/.
