On Jan. 6 during The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, IBM and Farmer Connect – an classification committed to augmenting clarity and sustainability in cultivation supply bondage – demoed a blockchain-based app that allows consumers to learn about a coffee beans they purchase.
Founder and boss of Farmer Connect, David Behrends, told Cointelegraph that a “Thank My Farmer” mobile app provides consumers with an interactive map to uncover a tour of their coffee by scanning a QR-code:
“After scanning a QR-code, consumers are taken true to a product page that gives sum about a coffee they are drinking. Below that outline is an interactive map that shows a tour a coffee has taken. We contend we can transport a universe by a crater of coffee, and we’d like to assistance consumers daydream that.”
The Thank My Famer app is powered by IBM’s blockchain technology, that creates a permanent digitized sequence of exchange that can't be altered — tracking any step of a coffee bean’s journey.
According to IBM’s Worldwide Blockchain Leader, Paul Chang, any member concerned on a Thank My Farmer network has an accurate duplicate of a transaction data, and that additions to a blockchain are common around a network formed on any participant’s turn of permission. This allows farmers, wholesalers, traders and retailers to correlate some-more efficiently, while providing consumers with insights about a origins of a coffee products.
As a result, Behrends explained that consumers will be means to see a accurate locations of a farms where their coffee was grown, along with a stairs a coffee bean underwent before nearing to a grocery store.
“If we have geolocation of farmers, those farms will seem on a map. If we don’t have this information, we uncover a stairs a coffee underwent. For instance, coffee starts off as a cherry, a beans get taken out of a cherry and are cleared and dried. Each step is achieved in opposite segments before a product goes to ports of trade and import. Consumers can click on a interactive map to learn some-more about how coffee has been sourced, trafficked and transformed.”
At CES, Bluestone Lane coffee products were used to denote how a Thank My Farmer app works. According to Behrends, a app will be accessible to a ubiquitous marketplace during a commencement of 2020. Users in a United States and Canada will be means to indicate QR codes on Folgers 1850 formula reward single-origin coffee. European consumers will be means to use a app on a new single-origin brand, Beyers 1769, roasted during Beyers Koffie.
The “blockchain for good” element
Behrends also remarkable that one of a goals behind a Thank My Famer app is to humanize any consumer’s attribute with their coffee by giving coffee drinkers prominence into a supply chain, permitting them to improved know a stairs concerned in formulating a product.
Reports show that coffee drinkers devour some-more than half a trillion cups per year. Moreover, two-thirds of consumers between a ages of 19–24 cite to buy coffee that is sustainably grown and responsibly sourced. However, there is still a miss of believe that 25 million tiny coffee farmers rest on bringing their product to marketplace in sequence to acquire a living.
By regulating blockchain, Thank My Famer lets consumers make approach contributions to a farmers obliged for sourcing their coffee. Behrends remarkable that as developments to a app are made, that consumers will be means to support coffee farmers by appropriation internal projects by a application.
“We wish to inspire consumers to share a governance of sustainability by being means to make contributions while saying a impact it has in these communities – for me that’s what civilizing coffee is about,” pronounced Behrends.
Self-sovereign temperament from a Sovrin Foundation will yield farmers with a digital temperament built on a blockchain. Behrends explained:
“We are collaborating with a Sovrin Foundation to hide self-sovereign temperament in a app. We are still building this technology, though it will fundamentally give farmers a digital identity, lenient them to possess their information for a initial time.”
Moreover, Behrends remarkable that a farmer’s digital temperament will enclose certification and digital annals display when a rancher sells coffee to traders. Traders are afterwards means to pull digital certification to endorse price, apportion and peculiarity of coffee to farmers around a app. Once all has been supposed and reliable by a farmer, a digital record of prolongation and income is created, that is afterwards available on a IBM blockchain.
A farmer’s digital temperament will also be related to a bank comment or digital wallet in a future, permitting consumers to make approach contributions to farmers that can afterwards be entirely traced regulating a Thank My Farmer app.
While Behrands remarkable that a app’s remuneration railways will not be prepared until February, he explained that consumers who wish to support farmers will be given a singular pivotal formula to lane where their contributions are during all times. He explained:
“The app will let consumers ‘follow a money’ to see when contributions have been collected, how they have been many-sided and many importantly, what has been diluted to account a sold project.”
How is this opposite from other blockchain-based solutions?
While a Thank My Farmer app is powered by a IBM blockchain, Chang told Cointelegraph that Farmer Connect is not partial of IBM’s Food Trust Network, which now consists of over 200 food suppliers and retailers including Walmart and Carrefour. Chang explained that a app simply uses a same resources that energy a Food Trust platform.
“We took a resources from a Food Trust network and put those in a dedicated sourroundings for Farmer Connect to residence a coffee attention supply chain. As a result, Famer Connect doesn’t have to worry about scalability, confidence and robustness of a network, as all has already been proven out by Food Trust.”
Moreover, Chang remarkable that a idea behind Thank My Famer was not to exam a new record or concept, though rather to emanate a some-more tolerable ecosystem for coffee drinkers, farmers, traders and all a other players involved.
This differs from other blockchain-based solutions that lets consumers indicate a QR barcode to know where certain food equipment came from. For example, while European grocery supplier, Carrefour, has incorporated QR barcode record into some of their products, consumers are usually means to see where those dishes came from. Farmer Connect goes a additional step by permitting consumers to make approach contributions to farmers, that is a singular element. Behrends serve explained this, saying:
“Thank My Farmer app is an attention lead beginning being upheld by a whole industry. Others in space are perplexing to do something identical by display consumers where their food comes from, though we are addressing issues that a coffee attention is also facing.”
Behrends also remarkable that Farmer Connect is looking into expanding to other food industries where products are constructed by tiny hilt farmers such as tea and cocoa.