The Chinese government has issued the “Guiding Opinions on Rural Service Revitalization of Financial Services,” according to an official announcement on Feb. 11. The new framework is part of a plan to improve the efficiency of financial services for the country’s rural revitalization program. The guidance will purportedly help promote the application of new technologies in the rural financial sector, such as blockchain, to “improve the identification, monitoring, early warning, and disposal levels of agricultural credit risks.” The Guiding Opinions were jointly issued by the People's Bank of China, the Banking Regulatory Commission, the China Securities Regulatory Commission, the Ministry …

United States-based agricultural conglomerate Cargill has announced that it is investing digital engineering resources to develop Hyperledger Grid, according to an announcement on Jan. 25. Hyperledger Grid is a recently announced project from Hyperledger that aims to streamline supply chains by using blockchain technology. Cargill — the U.S.’s largest privately held company with $114.7 billion in revenue — states that the Hyperledger Grid can “accelerate development of blockchain and other digital solutions for the global food and agriculture supply chains.” Cargill notes that Hyperledger Grid has provided a suite of tools with which it can address agricultural supply chain issues …

Decentralized Artificial Intelligence (AI) firm SingularityNET has announced a partnership with agriculture-focused blockchain startup Hara at the World Web Forum, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph Jan. 21. Hara’s objective is reportedly to use blockchain to provide Indonesian farmers with useful data like grain price, soil quality and land ownership details. The newly announced partnership between the two firms aims to use this data to offer AI-powered crop diagnosis and data analytics to the ecosystem, according to the press release. As the press release notes, a main goal of the partnership for the firms is to expand access …

IBM Research has teamed up with United States-based agriculture tech firm Hello Tractor to boost the African agriculture industry with blockchain. The partnership was described in a Dec. 11 blog post on IBM’s official website. According to the post, the IBM Research division in Kenya is working with Hello Tractor’s developers in order to apply various tools and technologies, including blockchain, to the Hello Tractor mobile platform that enables farmers to access tractor services on demand. Specifically, IBM Research scientists will incorporate blockchain and the Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to Hello Tractor’s tool platform. IBM Research also intends to …

The South Korean government will use blockchain technology for tracing beef and providing consumers with information from the food supply chain, Yonhap News Agency, the largest news agency in South Korea, reported yesterday, Nov. 20. Blockchain technology has been implemented into the pilot program that is to be launched jointly by the Ministry of Science and ICT and Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs. The testing phase of the program is scheduled for December and the official launch of the system is to be in January 2019. According to Yonhap, the ministries are planning to use the distributed ledger …

The world’s four largest agriculture companies, commonly known as ABCD, have partnered to digitize international grain trading by using blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, Reuters reports Thursday, Oct. 25. ABCD, composed of Archer Daniels Midland Co., Bunge Ltd., Cargill Inc., and Louis Dreyfus Co., states that blockchain implementation could make trading more efficient and transparent, as well as reduce costs. The conglomerate aims to digitize the system that has previously relied on paper contracts, invoices, and manual payments. According to grain industry news outlet World-Grain.com, blockchain and AI will be initially used to automate grain and oilseed post-trade execution …

Many startups, major conglomerates, supply chain operators, and distributors have attempted to integrate blockchain technology over the past two years, to increase transparency and reduce the power of central entities in data processing. With billions of dollars being invested annually by major corporations in blockchain development, the emerging technology has become the focal point of the long-term vision of many companies internationally. The exponential increase in demand and interest in blockchain technology has enabled multi-billion dollar markets for the blockchain in major sectors including manufacturing, agriculture, retail, supply chain, IoT, and payments. Blockchain in manufacturing to be $566 million by …

Agriculture is proving to be one of the most promising sectors for the growth and implementation of blockchain technologies. The mammoth industry suffers from a number of endemic issues. Agricultural trade relies on complex relationships between farmers and retailers, as well as convoluted supply chain procedures which can complicate payments and product providence. As demand for agricultural trade becomes increasingly international, suppliers and innovators alike are looking to bring the trade into the twenty first century by capitalising on blockchain’s distributed ledger technology. What blockchain can do for transparency and traceability One of blockchain’s most commonly promoted attributes is transparency. …

Is it possible to track where food comes from? Several companies have launched services allowing shoppers to see a product’s journey from farm to fork, but they often depend on retailers agreeing to be transparent. When you pop into a store to buy fresh fruit, vegetables or meat, it’s common for the packaging to reveal which country it is from. Some upmarket brands go further by offering stories about the farm and the conditions where the food was cultivated. Tracking an item step-by-step through the manufacturing process can be hard — and, sometimes, even manufacturers and retailers themselves aren’t sure …