Certification and traceability fund

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

We build an end-to-end traceability platform based on Cardano´s blockchain digital asset and specialized in agri-food supply chain operations starting in the first mile. 

The web platform offered to generate item-level digital twins that take only a few minutes to set up are free to use and open source to develop. Item-level tokens that enable certification, farm to fork traceability and ease digital commerce. This platform allows for the development of an ecosystem that facilitates exchanges of data along the supply chain. The Nourish platform digitized the first mile of the agricultural chain to make traceability and compliance with food safety standards an integral part of the production of small farmers and redefine the relationship between producers, organizations and markets. Living Roots use Nourish structures to promote sustainable sourcing, improve farmer life and protect the environment. 

Using the blockchain backbone, food business records and shares authentic information from every stage of the agricultural supply chain, starting with farmers and growers in the first mile. They will also Improve food safety, strengthen the integrity of their brands, Increase consumer loyalty and trust, track and monitor products around the globe in a transparent way, connect source data with data on sustainability characteristics such as good agricultural practices, farm locations, and social conditions in farmers communities.

Our solution help farmers to raise the product awareness, facilitate certification and inspection and reach new market opportunities. Tokens can be used as a communication tool with verifiable proof of sustainability. Thus farmers can develop their product catalog for free and commercialize their production. Digital twin of certification are also used to authenticate and certified products and help financial providers deliver funds for a product more sustainable with better quality even at a food product early stage and sell their products without parties.

The food supply chain is complex with multiple variables and blockchain can have difficult integration with existing software and data interoperability. Current blockchain solutions are private, expensive and complex to deploy thus they cannot suit smallholders and medium businesses.

We use tokens while reducing blockchain deployment complexity and cost by offering a free platform for farmer and company to build their collaborative traceability.This design solution stores information on blockchain tokens and transaction metadata and uses a common ontology to create interoperable data. This low tech solution enables a collaborative secure environment to exchange information.

On the regulation part, food provenance can help identify product origin and effort made to reduce carbon footprint from the production. This can be done by third party certification accessing farmer side about the usage of resource. Thus traceability can protect geographical indication (GI) goods and ensure the respect of “Products specifications” as provided for the EU regulation. For food producers it can help avoid counterfeiting of products and be proof of sustainable production. Brands face many issues when looking for suppliers By using tokens for food labeling and traceability systems can enforce the hygiene requirement (e.g. maintenance cold chain) facilitates traceability (article 18 GFL*) and the recall (article 19 GFL). (*According to the article 18 Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 (General Food Law) imposes on a food business operator to ensure traceability:“One step back-one step forwards” must identify any person from whom they have been supplied with a food/raw material and to whom their products have been supplied (excluding final consumers) ). This public information can be used by consumers to make social and environmental buying decisions. Finally tokens can help for the data interoperability and connection between food databases to open information.

Living Roots is developing a public platform where food stakeholders can connect their wallet and freely register products and trade them on the blockchain. We democratizes the blockchain supply chain for smallholders to unlock their trust to develop new products. For example, smallholder farmers create tokens from their food products and offer traceability by sending the tokens to the next stakeholders. For each product , a web page can be generated saving time on securing information and creating an immutable link between food and certification. Stakeholders will also be able to send cryptocurrencies to offer fund, loan and payment using Cardano cryptocurrencies and stable coin. Every user will be able to analyze existing products on the blockchain to verify their food products traceability. 

The Mobile version is made for consumer to rapidly check information about food products. For now, mobile app explorer pilot is based on tea traceability (http://www.senolytix.org/teaonchain/ ). The demo showcases how blockchain token but can be used for dairy food product provenance, certification and traceability without any brand to rely on. The MVP can be found in the open repository (https://github.com/evonne1/teaonchain). 

The app includes a QRcode scanner that allows research for any token on the Cardano blockchain and displays it for the food consumer to get the information.

The Nourish web platform has two objectives: 

The web app enables food producers, agribusiness, brand and regulators to create, transfer and verify digital twins of food products along the supply chain. This platform enables communication and trust over product information and offers a transparent traceability solution. Tokens will protect the product information integrity and certification in a metadata structure, preserve the distribution stoichiometry (1 token = 1 unit of food) and can be synchronized in every ecommerce and ERP database at the same time. Every end consumer will be able to check for product information saved on the blockchain.

Connection on the platform will be secured by the Cardano wallet. The login and private storage will keep information and allow private exchange between agribusiness and farmers. The public platform allows farmers and businesses to easily create an account, deploy digital products and exchange funds over the Cardano blockchain. In this platform third parties can analyze transactions, verify information and send certification to give more value to products notably in the organic production transformation. This web platform can also help financiers to directly send funds in the form of cryptocurrencies directly to the farmers to facilitate farmers' access to funds. Since data of product and traceability are open source we are supporting the development of advanced research on food traceability and free integration with IoT made on the blockchain. We are integrating this functionality in a UI/UX interface design. The webapp is under testing, the code available for development is commented and documented.  

[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.

Our proposition address the challenge in two way:

• Create a systematic funding for proof of sustainability and social inclusion based on cardano tokens. We will fund farmer directly from this certification /traceability .
• Build a free transparent traceability system for farmers and non profit organization to expose their product. From digital twin of product we can use this open data to optimize the use of resource ( water, energy), made production and distribution more efficient, reduce food waste.

[IMPACT] What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?

There is several risks to our project:

• If the tool offered are too complicated or convenient it will lower adoption rate
• If farmer are not certified properly then fund will be send but will not help to fight sustainability

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.

Timeline and deliverable starting from September:

• September to December (4 months) : Work with a marketing specialist to work on the marketing strategy, execution to reach
• September to December (4 months) : Distribute fund, certification and help farmers set digital twins of their food product with help from NGO

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Milestone are divided as follow:

• $2000 will be send directly to smallholders farmers in Africa through a sustainable NGO for certification and traceability of their product ($50 certification and $50 for traceability)
• $1000 will be used to pay a marketing specialist to connect with brand and agrobusiness to fund and work with farmers and transparent traceability system

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.

We are currently two on the project:

• Jules Repusseau , Haskell developer, founder
• Evonne, UX/ UI developer

We are looking for a marketing profile

[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.

If the project is successful following user involved and carbon footprint reduction we may consider offer project to develop smallholders fund for sustainability

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or any member of your team working on any other proposals in this Fund9?

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or your team working on any other proposals from previous Funds?

[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?

We will consider the following metrics:

• Numbers of farmers funded
• Numbers of certification
• Traction (awareness, lead) of brand, food company that join the project
• Number of digital twin created

[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?

We want to address sustainability and transparency of the food supplychain in a systematic way using at every step Cardano :

• Brand are engaged with farmers to fund sustainable production using ADA
• consumer daily check their product for better decision
• Supplychain using end to end traceability to reduce water used and food waste

[AUDITABILITY] Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.

Cardano catalyst Fund 7 https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/381038 in junction with Fund 8 project https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/400610/

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Rating

Solution aims to achieve zero hunger (SDG2) by improving the local food production and responsible production (SDG12) . Favoring local and organic production also participates in the improvement of good health and wellbeing (SDG3 ) by providing rich nutrients and food without industrial additives.  

By improving local agriculture and delivery systems development Our solution also improves local work and economic growth (SDG8), local industry (SDG9) and sustainable cities and communities (SDG11).