IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics Magazine - October 2022 - 42

why prices have grown as a result of these circumstances.
With its openness and transparency, blockchain in agriculture
allows farmers and other parties to have a thorough
grasp of the subject matter in question. What is the process
through which this occurs?
With smart agriculture, one may strategically deploy
agricultural weather stations around fields to produce
critical information about weather that can be used to
influence the behavior of crops. Farmers may use this
method to measure and keep track of some of the following
information:
◆ temperature
◆ precipitation
◆ relative humidity
◆ wind direction
◆ soil temperature at various elevations
◆ atmospheric pressure
◆ leaf wetness
◆ wind speed
◆ dew-point temperature
◆ solar radiation
◆ other variables.
This information is kept in a blockchain so that any
authorized entity may access it in a transparent manner at
any time. Consequently, producers may take necessary
steps, such as crop insurance plans, depending on the preceding
provided information. Furthermore, they will be
able to get reimbursement in a simple and timely manner.
Figure 3 shows the proposed architecture.
Expected Outcomes
Agriculture is a relatively unexplored area that has the
potential to be fundamentally transformed by blockchain
technology. Blockchain technology has the potential to
benefit the agricultural industry in a variety of ways. In
this research, we use blockchain technology in different
types of agriculture use cases. We next discuss some
expected outcomes of this research.
Improved Quality Control and Food Safety
The proposed framework can help all stakeholders in terms
of increased openness across the supply chain, the elimination
of inefficient procedures, and making certain that the
best possible quality control conditions are in place.
Increased Traceability in the Supply Chain
There is an ever-increasing demand from consumers for
high-quality food. Customers are more concerned about
where their food originates, and this trend is expected to
continue. This issue may be resolved by using blockchain
technology, which would allow customers to know precisely
where their food comes from, who grew it, and how
fresh it is. Increased traceability in the supply chain will
have a significant influence on the following areas: lowering
the incidence of food fraud, removing erroneous labeling,
removing middlemen from the process, ensuring that
42 IEEE SYSTEMS, MAN, & CYBERNETICS MAGAZINE October 2022
producers are adequately compensated for their work, and
allowing consumers to understand exactly what they are
paying for.
Increased Efficiency for Farmers
Currently, most farmers capture and manage data using a
variety of applications made by software development companies,
spreadsheets, and notes in their daily work. Sending
these data to other service vendors is not simple and needs
a significant amount of effort. The use of blockchain technology
would make it possible for farmers to keep all of
their data in a single location, making it more accessible to
those who need it and saving time and energy in the process.
For example, they would be able to monitor things like
objectives and strategies for achieving these goals. How
many animals there are, their health conditions, what they
eat, and how frequently they should be fed are just some of
the things to consider, find out how many kinds of crops
were planted, when and how well they've done, how many
hours each employee has worked, how much each employee
is entitled to be paid, and expenses and income information.
As a result, the process becomes more efficient, and
information is less likely to be lost if everything is recorded
in one place.
Fairer Payments for Farmers
Farmers have several difficulties in being compensated for
their goods. For example, typically, farmers don't get the
entire payment for their commodities for many weeks, and
traditional payment methods, such as wire transfers, may
eat up a considerable portion of their profits. In the case of
smart contracts based on the blockchain, a certain prespecified
condition is met, and payments are automatically
triggered without incurring excessive transaction costs.
Farms might conceivably get money for their commodities
as soon as they're delivered, without losing a large percentage
of their revenue in the process.
Conclusion
A total of 118 publications on the food and agricultural business
were reviewed in this research, and the findings were
presented in this report. The articles were published
between 2018 and 2021. The current investigation was carried
out with the help of the VOSviewer program. From the
data, it can be concluded that research on the idea of blockchain
in agriculture began in 2018 and has continued to get
increased interest from academics, notably in 2021. Furthermore,
the findings revealed that India, China, and the United
States are the top three nations in the world for
publishing articles on blockchain technology in agriculture.
The findings also revealed that traceability, supply chain,
the IoT, smart contracts, and food security are the top terms
that have appeared most often in this context. According to
the results, IoT technology has been extensively used in the
development of blockchain systems in agriculture. In addition
to that, the authors have brought up the challenges
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