ACR #25: Can Blockchain Solve Food Security?
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I’ve been wanting to write about blockchain’s application outside of finance. Luckily, about a few weeks ago, I discovered a blockchain firm that was leveraging the technology in agriculture in South Africa. I reached out to one of the founders, and he was willing to speak with me about their product.
Below is an interview with the co-founder of Coronet Blockchain, Shadrack Kubyane. The interview has been edited for clarity and length.
How did Coronet start?
We started as a management consulting firm, but our blockchain journey began in 2019 when we were trying to solve product quality issues for our client, a beauty brand looking to scale its supply in Africa. Through a partnership with a blockchain solutions provider in the United States, we brought transparency to the supply chain process for our client and ensured product quality consistency as they scaled.
Then, in the fourth quarter of 2022, we got funding to launch a dedicated blockchain product for the agriculture supply chain in Africa. This led to the launch of the eFama App, a subsidiary of Coronet. It is built on NEAR, a Swiss-based blockchain protocol.
Now, we’re focused on eFama to help farmers sell their fresh produce and meat directly to consumers and commercial buyers and achieve product quality at lower costs.
How is blockchain applied to what you do?
Our use of blockchain, specifically within the food supply chain through the eFama App, improves transparency, traceability, and efficiency for smallholder farmers and semi-commercial farmers.
Here are some of the features we provide:
A decentralised marketplace: through a mobile application, we enable farmers to connect with buyers and consumers directly, eliminating unnecessary intermediaries.
Sales & inventory management system: Farmers can receive and manage orders & inventory volumes. It serves as proof of trade, enabling them to raise money to fund their operations easily.
Security: All transactions and activities in the network are authenticated, secure and verifiable, with appropriate visibility. Unlike traditional systems, records cannot be tampered with or compromised at will.
Supplier Verification: Our framework ensures that all parties involved in the supply chain have been checked, vetted & confirmed to be reliable before being onboarded with ongoing provenance during the trade.
Supply chain transparency: Using blockchain in our marketplace enables transparent and immutable recording of every transaction and movement of agricultural products across the supply chain. Each step, from planting and harvesting to processing and distribution, can be recorded on the blockchain, ensuring that consumers can trace the origin and journey of food products. This helps verify the product’s authenticity and quality while minimising fraud or counterfeiting.
Smart contracts: We use smart contracts to enable self-executing agreements per our supplier agreements, rules and conditions within the supply chain.
Our smart contract automates various processes in our marketplace, such as payment settlements between farmers, suppliers, and buyers and provides secure and transparent payment systems for farmers.
What are some of the benefits for farmers using your application?
What makes our current use case an impactful solution is the focus on the three most important priorities for a farmer of any size:
Being able to achieve product quality assurance quicker and cheaper.
Being able to access the market without unnecessary intermediaries that eat into their margins.
Building a sustainable business that can be funded and grow into a legacy for their children.
Can you share how many farmers you have or how many users use your network?
In the first quarter of this year, we’ve had almost 10,000 farmers registering through our website to sell their produce; we are now busy building a KYC process to onboard them onto our marketplace.
In addition, we have almost 1,000 buyers registered in just two weeks of launching our mobile app.
What do you expect going forward?
Across the next 36 months, we see 100,000 farmers being able to sell their produce to consumers through our application.
By year 5, we want 1 million users, meaning 1 million Africans will have access to quality & affordable food, contributing significantly to food security.
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