Blockchain can improve the timely response capacity of agricultural industry

On the one hand is the oldest industry, on the other hand is the rookie standing on the wind. What changes will the combination of blockchain and agriculture bring? On November 1, Lin Guofa, research director of Breck agricultural products collection and purchase network, told the first financial reporter that the greatest value of blockchain is to eliminate information asymmetry to the greatest extent, improve the information transparency and timely response ability of the entire industrial chain, so as to realize the value-added of the entire industry. He believes that there are still some challenges for blockchain to enter agriculture. For example, technology itself needs to be optimized. The biggest technical challenge of blockchain lies in throughput, delay time, capacity and bandwidth, security and other aspects. In addition, blockchain technology has a high threshold for entry, involving many interdisciplinary and interdisciplinary cutting-edge technologies such as cryptography, computational mathematics, artificial intelligence, etc., but at this stage, the most lacking is agricultural informatization talents.

Chen Lin, vice chairman of the academic committee of the first subsidiary think tank for eliminating information asymmetry and chief economist, told CFI that the essence of blockchain is distributed account book technology and consensus based on trust, and a more convenient, efficient and flat trading service platform based on trust and consensus. The application of blockchain in agriculture is initially related to traceability and supply chain. Distributed account books can record and update the status of crops from planting, management and protection to harvesting, storage, transportation, processing and delivery. This secure and unchangeable distributed account book can ensure that agricultural data will not be lost and can be queried in real time. He said that if all links in the supply chain of agricultural products are added to the traceability system based on the block chain, it will have a qualitative impact on the operation mode of the entire agricultural industry. Internationally, for example, Heifer International has started to support cooperatives in the application of blockchain, product traceability, quality and safety certification. In practice, transparency and traceability can ensure food safety in the farm to table production process. In June 2017, Zhongan technology officially launched the "walking chicken" project. According to the 166 day feeding cycle of the project, each step chicken is equipped with an IOT device - the chicken card, which is equivalent to the chicken's ID card. The chicken sign can record the data of each step chicken in various links such as raising, slaughtering, transportation, etc., such as the activity state, position track, etc.

At the same time, these data will be uploaded to the ecological alliance chain created by anlink cloud in real time for distributed storage. When purchasing, consumers can query the traceability and anti-counterfeiting information through mobile app to understand the data of the chicken over the past 100 days, including breed, location, growth track, slaughter and other information. Once the chicken brand is destroyed, the data will be destroyed automatically. According to agfunder news, a US agriculture news website, a number of distributed ledger agriculture solutions are emerging, including filment, which created the concept of "smart farm.". On filment's platform, users can build reliable farm infrastructure using smart farm technology. The so-called "smart farm" is a sustainable agricultural production mode, which can improve environmental quality, integrate science and technology and biological cycle regulation, and create economic value through farm operation. Farms using blockchain technology can broadcast tamper proof weather data, SMS alerts, mechanical protocols, GPS (Global Positioning System) positioning, and obtain more accurate information from other related platforms. In addition, the practical application of blockchain technology in the field of agriculture also includes reducing unfair pricing, recording the origin of products, reducing the impact of imported agricultural products, and developing local economy. In the future, the blockchain platform can also help remit money to rural areas and provide agricultural financial solutions. In the aspect of Agricultural Internet of things, the application of blockchain also contains huge opportunities.

At present, the main factors restricting the large-scale extension of the Agricultural Internet of things are high application cost, high maintenance cost and poor performance. Moreover, the Internet of things is a centralized management. With the increase of Internet of things equipment, the cost of infrastructure investment and maintenance of data center is difficult to estimate. The combination of Internet of things and blockchain will enable these devices to achieve self-management and maintenance, save the high maintenance cost centered on cloud control, reduce the later maintenance cost of Internet devices, and help to improve the intelligent and large-scale level of Agricultural Internet of things. In 2006, Zhejiang Province made an attempt to establish a new rural cooperation system of "Trinity" of farmers' professional cooperation, supply and marketing cooperation, and credit cooperation. In 2017, the No. 1 document of the CPC Central Committee was officially included in the formulation of "Trinity" comprehensive cooperation. Chen Lin believes that the Trinity cooperative economy and its cooperative finance follow a decentralized equity structure and business network, which is quite different from the usual industrial and commercial enterprises and commercial banks, but very close to the structural basis of the blockchain. Its decentralized economic and financial model of transparent and democratic management within a certain community and community has a natural coupling with the emerging blockchain technology. Chen Lin said that in the past years, the cost of organization operation has been an important constraint in the trial and promotion of the Trinity cooperation economy at the grass-roots level.

However, the rapid development of information technology, especially the breakthrough of mobile Internet and blockchain technology, has broken the long-term bottleneck constraints, making the organizational cost of cooperative economy significantly reduced, and the speed of replication and promotion significantly accelerated. He said that "Trinity" can provide a real and effective application scenario for the development of blockchain, while blockchain technology can help "Trinity" cooperative organizations to standardize and improve internal management and improve operational efficiency; and then solve the problems of industry self-discipline and external supervision through the combination of alliance chain and cooperative joint organizations; and it is also possible to promote the cooperative economic and financial operation mode Innovation and upgrading. For example, the consensus mechanism and smart contract system of the blockchain can strengthen internal management, increase participation and reduce the operation cost of the organization. Members' meeting, board of directors, board of supervisors and all kinds of special committees can vote online, and the compliance audit is conducted by the intelligent program.

The voting results cannot be tampered with and can be automatically executed. Blockchain system can also provide traceable, verified, standardized and digital transaction records, and provide effective tools for internal audit and external supervision. For another example, the cooperative account book naturally has the nature of shared account book and distributed characteristics. Generally speaking, cooperatives have two sets of account book systems, one is the management account book of the property funds of the cooperative legal person, and the other is the trading account book of the cooperative members. The account books and statements of cooperatives should be open to members, but not every member can participate in and supervise the traditional accounting process in real time. If distributed bookkeeping technology is used, each member can have a real-time account book of all transactions and know the financial situation at any time. In addition, the application of blockchain in rural finance has broad prospects. Combined with the characteristics of blockchain, such as the data can not be tampered with and smart contract, it can play an irreplaceable role of high efficiency and low cost value transfer in traditional financial institutions.