BlockApps collaborated with Bayer, to launch a new blockchain-powered business network. The TraceHarvest Network is aimed at transforming the way agricultural products are managed, setting new sustainability standards, and driving digital transformation and food system resiliency vital to the future of the agricultural industry.
The business is an Etherum-based network that improves food quality, sustainability, and safety by bringing supply chain efficiencies, compliance, stewardship, and transparency to agricultural products. Over the past two years, Bayer served as a founding member and active user of the network for live customer-facing operations in regions such as the U.S, and Brazil and plans to expand globally. It used TraceHarvest for more than two growing seasons to track the status and lifecycle of the company’s highest-value agricultural products which includes corn and soybean from planting and sale through harvest.
Bayer believes TraceHarvest will assist farmers irrespective of their size to have access to new markets and services, increasing their livelihoods via their capabilities to offer new premium products. The platform also allows farmers to enhance their farming operations by granting them access to enhanced supply chain information. Manufacturers, member farmers processors, and distributors can use the network to track where their products are going which provides them will full visibility into the source of their crops.
The network can be used for other vital use cases like promotion of both sustainability and consumer wellbeing, and carbon offset crediting to food safety recalls. The platform will provide information across the lifecycle of agricultural products which provides insights to drive and reward sustainable practices throughout the food supply chain.
Full track and trace from the seed source
The BlockApps TraceHarvest Network is the first solution of its kind that helps to track and trace the full lifecycle of agricultural products from the seed source. For seed products, the platform provides a full picture of stewardship from the point of sales, exchange of seeds, planting, harvesting, and processing. BlockApps collaborated with the Crop Science Division at Bayer to develop the platform and test it to the highest industry standard for traceability and provides the first and best in class solution for the grain industry.
Manufacturers, farmers, processors, and distributors can selectively share and review data within a single, secure platform to provide the entire chain with activities. The real-time information exchange and streamlined engagement enable all parties to identify and address tracking of products and integrity challenges faster than the previously manual processes allowed.
Unluckily, the current analog process use creates vital labor costs, and resources and fail to deliver the data required by the farmers and other value chain participant. Such inefficiencies put businesses at risk of compliance violations across the supply chain and in several geographies. According to BlockApps and Bayer, the platform ensures agricultural products are marketed faster, assists the safe launch of new products in approved regions, and provides accurate traceability to ensure they have strong proof of compliance with international regulations.
The network runs on BlockApps cloud-agnostic STRATO platform, an enterprise-grade, flexible, Etherum-based blockchain solution for developing and running business networks with built-in security. This shared infrastructure incentivizes greater cooperation and association between farmers and businesses.
“Blockchain technology is already revolutionizing the agriculture industry, and we’re leading the way thanks to our partnership with the Crop Science Division at Bayer, which has turned this concept from idea into reality,” said Kieren James-Lubin, president and CEO at BlockApps.
“TraceHarvest is highly scalable, which is crucially important because it allows members to add more business processes, use cases, and tech integrations into the very same network. For example, network members will be able to collaborate with downstream food producers to extend tracking of agricultural products even further down the value chain and ultimately verify claims made about their ingredients and sustainability practices,” he continued.
“By enabling the traceability of products throughout the food supply chain, TraceHarvest will provide a basis for new solutions and services around the food quality and transparency questions that are top-of-mind for farmers and consumers,” added Sascha Israel, Bayer Crop Science CIO and head of digital transformation.
“The TraceHarvest platform will enable our traditional and non-traditional business partners throughout the food value chain to explore new products, services, and business models. Trusting in the stewardship of agricultural products is essential to navigating the complex ecosystem of modern farming,” concluded Michael Pareles, digital strategy and growth lead at Bayer Crop Science. “Using TraceHarvest in production has allowed us to drive operational efficiencies, create value and have greater visibility, transparency, and compliance throughout the entire food supply and value chain.”
