The challenge: Use of blockchain in agriculture

Blockchain technology has many applications within supply chain management. They allow producers and manufacturers at different stages to:

• record their transactions 
• ensure that records can be verified and cannot be changed

Blockchain has been available for several years and is used in other industries. For agriculture, its use has been limited and interoperability has not been realized, meaning that different parts of the sector are not able to effectively communicate or connect by exchanging information. 

Within the agricultural sector, blockchain technology can:

• reduce transaction costs through a transparent, decentralized and secure transaction process
• support communication and data exchange throughout the supply chain 
• enable food traceability from farm to fork

The power of standards: Creating a technical specification

Around 43,000 Canadian farmers grow 20 million tonnes of canola each year. This makes Canada the world’s largest canola producer. 

Objective: To improve the traceability of canola, SCC supported the development of Technical Specification (CIOSC/TS 114). We worked with the Protein Industries Supercluster and the Digital Governance Council.  

Now published, the technical specification provides minimum requirements for scalable distributed ledger technologies to: 

• strengthen Canada’s supply chain 
• increase traceability of agricultural commodities in Canada

It considers requirements for:

• digital tokens 
• source verification 
• blockchain protocols 
• data standards 
• contract management