Articles
Blog articles
Agri-wallet, a wallet for smallholder farmers
Access to finance is a serious challenge for smallholder farmers worldwide, and the majority of them are still underfinanced. When loans are provided, farmers may often pass these loans on to other people in need of cash. This, as well as the absence of a credit score or collateral (like title deeds), create uncertainty and risk for financial institutions and increases the difficulty for farmers to obtain such loans or other forms of finance.
Read MoreFairfood hits the ground running with blockchain
Consisting of a small group of ambitious young people, Fairfood in the Netherlands aims to contribute to the achievement of six of the 17 sustainable development goals. Lonneke Craemers, head of business development and project management at Fairfood, explains how blockchain technology is helping them to achieve these aims.
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Land LayBy: Using blockchain to improve landownership
Since 2014, a pioneering organisation called Land LayBy has been developing land acquisition solutions. After a successful pilot scheme in Kenya, Land LayBy has scaled up their services to Australia, Ghana, London and New York. We spoke with Raymond Kaniu, chief strategist at Land LayBy and main author of their white paper. He explains Land LayBy’s journey and their experiences of working with blockchain technology.
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The building blocks for better value chains
The UN reports that around 50% of crop value vanishes between harvesting and the point of sale. AgUnity – an Australian agri-tech start-up established in 2016 – aims to address this issue in Kenya, Papua New Guinea and Ethiopia with the help of blockchain technology.
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Background articles
Can blockchain plug Africa’s agri-finance gap?
A group of partners are developing a blockchain-powered ecosystem across Africa that they say will boost investment into agricultural infrastructure, allow smallholder farmers to borrow more cheaply and stimulate consumer activity in rural economies.
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News articles
Blockchain, a technology with big potential for farmers and value chains actors
During a recent CTA ICT4Ag Outlook workshop, three topics were discussed: start-up financing, 3D printing and blockchain. Blockchain has emerged in recent years with the exciting potential for ACP countries. The exchanges focused on this new technology in order to help develop a better understanding and to discuss its benefits and actual limitations.
Read MoreScientific Articles
Eliminating the trust factor
Henk van Cann is co-founder of Blockchain Workspace, an organisation based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands that provides training on the blockchain to make the technology understandable to a broad audience. Henk spoke to ICT Update about the need to educate people in the use of the blockchain before they start using it and judging it, and why trust is one of the key drivers for moving away from centralised systems and towards blockchain technology.
Read MoreAssessing the need for blockchain applications
Using the Oxford Blockchain Strategy Framework, Nikolet Zwart has analysed a use case of adding value through the local processing of food by multinational agribusinesses to illustrate the usefulness of any kind of blockchain analysis.
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The blockchain: opportunities and challenges for agriculture
Nathalie Toulon from the AgroTIC Digital Agriculture Chair in France discusses the many ways in which the blockchain can potentially change agriculture, for example by enhancing trust, transparency and efficiency, and several pitfalls to take into account. Like any new technology, blockchain should not be viewed as a panacea. For it to serve development, it will need to mature.
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Cryptocurrency: more education, less hype
John Weru is a Kenya-born writer, blogger and co-founder of PayHub East Africa. In a conversation with ICT Update, John talked about the rise of cryptocurrency, the potential of the blockchain to improve efficiency in the agricultural value chain in Africa, and the urgent need to educate people about the technology itself and the economy that it is creating.
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Building lives with dignity
Eva Oakes describes Choco4Peace’s experience building a network based on blockchain technology in the cocoa sector in Colombia. The main aim is to get smallholders out of both cocaine production and poverty through access to finance.
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