Blockchain in agricultural value chains of developing economies – progress, challenges, and future pathways

Blockchain technology has been evolving with widespread applications where it enables timestamping and transfer of goods based on cryptographic proof instead of trust. This allows parties to transact without a trusted third party, which lowers transaction costs and supports efficient trade. Although sharing almost tamper-proof records is a significant benefit of blockchain, several authors caution against presenting the technology as a silver bullet for authenticity-related challenges. We review agricultural applications of the technology in developing economies to reflect on the ability and readiness of blockchain to authenticate/verify credence quality attributes in agricultural value chains of these economies. We found that developing economies are still well served by centralised, digital cloud-based data storage, which does not require the decentralisation capability provided by blockchain. The application of blockchain for agriculture in these economies therefore depend on fast-tracking the digitisation of agricultural value chains. We highlight the physical transformation of agricultural commodities as a major challenge to blockchain in general and list some research priorities for successful uptake in the future.