Food traceability solution - Africa

African food supply chain is made of smallholder farmers who often do not get the due reward for their produce thereby leaving the farmers poorer. Typical example in Africa during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government gave out incentives to boost agricultural production but the incentives never got to the farmers in the rural areas. This can be attributed to so many things like lack of rural farmers' records, information asymmetry and poor government policies.

Tackle this his challenge approach could rely on the use of blockchain to have records of rural farmers, monitor and manage all communications and transactions within the supply chain network among all of the stakeholders.

Traditionally managed small-sized farms should be opened to technological, institutional and managerial innovations, while at the food processor stage innovations regarding the pre-treatment, preservation, handling and packaging of food need to be implemented.

Productive food supply chains providing the local, regional and export market represent major weapons for considerably reducing poverty among smallholder farmers, poverty in general and for mitigating hunger.

There is a current pressing needs for such solutions in Africa where the market has not been opened to technological innovations yet.

We would like to map the potential opportunities in Nigeria in order to apply a pilot using the outcomes of "EMURGO Traceability Solution" implemented with Blue Korintji Coffee in Indonesia.