Blockchain-based supply chain application for livestock agriculture
The main objective of the project is to apply a holistic approach for decreasing the GHG emissions derived from intensive livestock farming by optimizing the livestock production. For doing this, the consortium monitors the animal feed, the animal behavior and characteristics and the stable environment. Specifically, IoT devices are installed in farms for monitoring key parameters of i) the stable environment (temperature, humidity, gas sensors (NOx, COx, CH4, NH3, etc.), ii) the animal (accelerometer, motion sensor, weight sensor, etc.) and iii) the feed (flow sensor, weight sensor, humidity sensor etc.). BlockChain Technology (BCT) is used in the platform for developing different features such as data protection, data privacy, data sharing, traceability and smart contracts among the livestock farming stakeholders. Specifically, the smart contracts feature of the platform help livestock farming stakeholders to have contracts with better prices due to decreased GHG emissions.
In our project a web based platform collects and analyzes livestock farm data for providing recommendations to the livestock farming stakeholders (farmers, consultants etc) in order to take management decisions for reducing GHG emissions. In addition, Blockchain is used in the platform for developing different features such as data protection, data privacy, data sharing, traceability and smart contracts among the livestock farming stakeholders. Specifically, the smart contracts feature of the platform helps livestock farming stakeholders to have contracts with better prices due to decreased GHG emissions. The blockchain-based supply chain application can be used for developing other blockchain services and applications tailored for any project call scope or commercial client requirements. Examples of potential uses: - traceability of the animal, to check whether it has passed through certain infectious areas for disease surveillance and preventing the spread of epidemics - smart contracts for new food fraud detection models - increase consumers’ confidence in the authenticity and quality of the food supply (e.g. trace and certify the origin of the food/animal produce via blockchain) - revenue model for providing incentives to farmers - smart contracts for ML-based disease model and solution (pest treatment, pest control etc.) - use multi-level risk association tree to track different risk management modules in risk smart ledgers, and designs smart contracts to automate the calculation of key performance indicators (KPIs) and key risk indicators (KRIs) to improve risk early warning and risk response automation capabilities for pesticides Our solution is based on Hyperledger Fabric + Spring Java-based back-end application + NodeJS-based front-end application
- Combating greenhouse gas emissions: Emissions reduction from the livestock sector can be achieved by reducing production and consumption, by lowering emission intensity of production, or by a combination of the two. - Combating fraud through blockchain: Distributed ledgers offer a range of benefits to government and other public/private organizations, as they can be distributed in a precisely controlled fashion. Changes by any participant with the necessary permission to modify the ledger are immediately reflected in all copies of the ledger, and, on the opposite side, they can be robust in rejecting changes by unauthorized parties, making the corruption of the ledger extremely difficult. This makes them suitable for avoiding the “single point of trust” problem and for establishing immutable, auditable records.
Our innovation allows to: - Decide about the various inter – related parameters that are required to have optimum use of environmental resources available (i.e. reduced GHG emissions). - Share with experts, any interim or major problems that may crop up during the whole livestock farming process e.g. sowing of seed to delivering milk from cows. - Offer certified market products with reduced GHG to livestock farming stakeholders and consumers.
We are at the last stage, which consists of piloting the entire FarmSustainaBl system which also contains the Blockchain-based supply chain application. What is needed to improve the innovation is: - interaction with end users in order to demonstrate in several farm settings (currently it is developed for cattle farm use case) - refinements to the blockchain structure, to accommodate other possible use cases (e.g. chicken farm, sheep etc.) - further API development for interacting with assets in the blockchain by other (internal or external) software components or 3rd party developers - market analysis for finding the most suitable commercialization pathways
