Figure 2: Use of Blockchains For Agricultural Sustainability23
The issue of land registration, at first glance, does not seem to have a significant bearing on food safety. However, in many developing countries, the existing land records available are poorly administered. Blockchain technologies, such as those hosted on the Ethereum blockchain offer the possibility of improving the land registration process and ensuring tenure rights. Blockchain technology also has been recommended as a way of improving food security by ensuring increased transparency and improving efficiency24. This is an important social issue and indeed, by developing individual blockchain solutions for different agricultural sustainability aspects, it could be possible to develop a full-stack blockchain-powered agricultural sustainability framework.
Some of the common blockchain scalability challenges include scalability25, tradeoffs between blockchain security and computational efficiency20(including identifying blockchain frameworks that minimize energy consumption while meeting the project goals), intellectual property issues20among others. Arguably, developing these conceptual frameworks and a critical comparison of the different blockchain frameworks (proof-of-stake vs proof-of-work consensus, permissioned vs permissionless blockchains, smart contracts)26is vital for enabling the scaling-up and mainstreaming of blockchain technology for supporting deforestation-free agricultural commodity sourcing. Qualitatively identifying the most energy-efficient alternative to the computationally demanding Bitcoin proof-of-work (POW) by comparing the ability of less-energy consuming Proof-of-Stake smart contract-based frameworks (such as those provided by Ethereum or Cardano)14, Hyperledgers for creating immutable records of agricultural commodity provenance and sourcing conditions27(in this case, the deforestation footprints underpinning the sourcing farms). Indeed different parts of the agricultural commodity supply chain could lend themselves to different blockchain technologies (figure 3).