Farmers.
The men and women you think of when you take a bite into a delicious and crisp apple, have a refreshing sip of ice cold milk, or enjoy a mouthwatering bite of a perfectly cooked steak. They’re the backbone of our country and the ones responsible for putting that delicious Australian Grown produce on our plates.
Unfortunately, farmers have little to no power over the current agricultural economy, due to inefficiencies in the supply chain and leading supermarkets driving prices down in a bid to grasp a larger market share. Through a diluted system of supply chains and supermarket giants monopolizing the industry, farmers profits feel the bitter end of a take it or leave it market.
It’s a real shame that the power does not lie in their hands when it comes to gaining financially from the fruits of their labour, because there is absolutely no denying how hard they work to keep the cogs turning in our agricultural economy.
At present, no native software platform currently exists for the agricultural industry to efficiently conduct business on, creating a difficulty with the transfer and interpretation of data between farmers, suppliers, supermarkets and consumers. This makes keeping track of stock held, sold and dispatched difficult, and can often result in loss of data between the current structures within the supply chain.
Fortunately, Blockgrain recognises their hard work, and are currently working hard to revolutionise the agricultural industry and give power back to the ‘little guys’.
Blockgrain has created a native platform for farmers to connect, contain and control their contribution to the market, providing a sustainable solution to bypass unnecessary “middle men”, streamlining the supply chain, putting profits and most importantly power back into the hands of everyday farmers.
“Imagine if all stakeholders in the agricultural industry could make better-informed decisions, eliminate unnecessary paperwork and dockets, reduce supply chain inefficiency and risk, open markets and increase the bottom line by conducting business in one simple platform.”
Block Grains CEO, Caile Ditterich, boasts over 15 years of experience within the grain industry, playing key roles in several large agricultural companies including Grain Corp, Australia's largest grain handler. Through Caile’s extensive amount of experience in the grain industry, he has experienced first hand the all-common issues embedded within the present structure of the global agricultural market and supply chain.
With a deep understanding of the challenges that australian farmers face, Caile was working to identify ways in which these obstacles could be overcome, and the structure and practicality of the current supply chain could be re-written. It wasn’t until discovering Blockchain technology that these ideas could be efficiently executed, and Blockgrain could be developed into a scalable platform for future expansion.
Fueled by Australian entrepreneurship, multiple partners and backed by the Queensland State Government, Blockgrain is a promising project and definitely one to keen eye on. Already proving successful in beta stage testing with local Australian farmers, Blockgrain has a big roadmap layed out to ensure a steady development.
Australia’s agricultural industry produces a diverse array of products and tradable commodities within domestic and international markets. The grain industry alone makes up for over 20% of Australia's agricultural products, with the remainder being comprised of livestock, dairy, fruit, vegetables, sugar cane and various raw materials such as cotton and wool. This leaves a lot of untapped market potential for Blockgrain, who are already in the development of being able to support these additional agricultural commodities on a domestic scale, before planning to plant their seeds within the international market by Q4 of 2019.
Due to an increasing amount of genetically modified foods, additives and pesticide usage in recent decades, there has been an ever growing demand from the consumer for healthy and naturally grown produce. People have a right to know exactly what they’re buying; and who they’re supporting.
Thanks to Blockchain technology, Blockgrain gives all app users complete transparency with it’s “paddock to plate” tracking. This will validate a products proof of origin, and empower consumers be more confident with not only the produce they purchase, but the providers they support.
From a financial perspective, both farmers and suppliers having their produce traced in realtime, and stamped with a ‘virtual certificate of authenticity’ drastically improves the marketability of their stock, and will create an increased value for their produce. The structure of blockchain traceability also boasts a range of other benefits, such as helping to reduce stock loss with live tracking of produce, improving productivity as orders are picked up and delivered in real time and eliminates the need for pesky paperwork along the way.
“As each load is picked up and delivered, data is collected and time-stamped at each point along the supply chain. All parties are updated in real time as each transaction takes place. Through this process, BlockGrain improves productivity, increases visibility, controls stock, automates freight orders and eliminates manual paperwork.”
All in all, Blockgrain is destined for great things and are already taking steps in the right direction with the right approach to create real change. The amount of groundbreaking and forward thinking ideas that are going to disrupt the industry thanks to Blockgrain are just to excessive to list in this article, so I definitely you suggest you have a thorough read through their whitepaper. It’s exceptionally well written and emphasises everything down to the finest detail for those of you who love to get lost between the lines.
Finally, with the private sale concluded, the ICO is well underway with over 5,300 Ethereum being contributed so far. The ICO is set to finish on the 24th of June which means there's only a few weeks left to secure your AGRI tokens, so be quick! I’ve left the link below to save you the hassle!
------- Read the whitepaper here -------
https://blockgrain.io/Blockgrain_Whitepaper.pdf
------- Register for the ICO here -------
Thanks for reading and best of luck to the team at Blockgrain!