Agricultural transformation is imminent, how does the blockchain "break the situation"?

In recent years, with the advancement of my country's agricultural power and the continuous improvement of science and technology, agricultural transformation is imminent, and smart agriculture has become an inevitable trend of future agricultural development. Just at the beginning of this year, the No. 1 central document "Opinions on Comprehensively Promoting Rural Revitalization and Accelerating Agricultural and Rural Modernization" was released and pointed out that it is necessary to develop smart agriculture and promote the deep integration of new generation information technology and agricultural production and management.

However, with the in-depth advancement of smart agriculture, related problems are also emerging. For example, the synergy efficiency of upstream and downstream industries of smart agriculture, the authenticity and security of agricultural data, and even the ownership of intellectual property rights based on smart agriculture have become urgent problems to be solved. With the rapid development of blockchain technology, these problems provide us with new ideas to solve problems.

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What pain points can blockchain solve?

Smart agriculture is the inevitable result of the rapid development of emerging information technologies such as blockchain, Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence. Through new technologies, the transparency, intelligent management, and agricultural production efficiency of the entire agricultural industry chain can be effectively improved. Compared with traditional agricultural mechanization or precision agriculture, smart agriculture can be said to be a reshaping of the value of agricultural credible data, including agricultural industry supply chain, agricultural big data, agricultural product traceability, agricultural finance, etc.

First of all, agricultural distributed data storage boosts industrial chain coordination.In fact, for a long time, an important reason that has restricted the large-scale upgrading of the smart agriculture industry chain is that traditional cloud-based data storage is very costly in terms of application and maintenance, and the overall performance is poor. With the development of smart agriculture, the number of terminal devices has increased dramatically, and the cost of the central cloud database is even more difficult to estimate. In this case, the advantages of blockchain distributed data storage are highlighted.

Based on distributed data storage, all data involved in the supply chain process can be recorded on different ledgers, and all links in the industrial chain can retrieve relevant data information at any time on the basis of authorization, effectively connecting the agricultural supply end and the consumer end. Circulation channels, establish a complete and transparent collaboration system, and improve the synergy efficiency of the industrial chain.

Second, create a safe and reliable agricultural Internet of Things.The agricultural supply chain involves many links such as product configuration, logistics distribution, transaction settlement, etc., and the amount of data is huge. Based on blockchain technology, a general ledger of the agricultural Internet of Things can be created. In addition to actually recording the data collected by the Internet of Things, this ledger can also record data such as equipment identification, shutdown conditions, equipment migration, and equipment maintenance. The interconnection and self-management of equipment provide safe and reliable guarantees.

In addition, the credible traceability of agricultural products has also been widely concerned.I believe that many people have heard of JD.com's "running chicken". Its biggest highlight is the use of Internet of Things technology to completely record the data information of the chicken from birth, growth, and sales by wearing "foot rings" on the chicken, including daily dietary information, etc. However, the problem with this is that the traceability data on the Internet may be tampered with and forged. The distributed data storage and data chain structure characteristics based on blockchain technology can not only record the production, transportation, processing and storage of agricultural products, but also ensure the authenticity of the data, which is difficult to tamper with and unforgeable. etc., thereby increasing the trust of consumers and expanding the market space.

For example, VoneTracer, a blockchain traceability platform with independent intellectual property rights, utilizes the decentralization and non-tamperable characteristics of the blockchain, adopts various data collection methods, and uses one code for each item to integrate the production, storage, and transportation of products. , Supply, and sales of the entire industry chain information storage on the chain, the application of industry-leading technology, successfully realized the "process tracking" and "product traceability" of products.

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"Agricultural credit" value transfer under the blockchain

In October 2015, the cover of the "Economist" magazine introduced blockchain technology: "Blockchain, a machine of trust" aroused people's awareness of "trust" based on blockchain technology. For a long time, our economic activities have been in an environment of "weak trust". Specifically, we need contracts and IOUs to endorse economic activities; dispute. The core value of blockchain technology is to create a "strong trust" environment without any endorsement for any two unfamiliar individuals or groups, so as to ensure the progress of circulation and transactions.

So, how does blockchain technology enable trusted interactions between distrustful parties?

We say that the blockchain is a peer-to-peer system built on a P2P network. It cleverly combines various existing technologies such as asymmetric encryption and consensus mechanisms to realize a complete set of trust mechanisms.

For example, the blockchain uses P2P technology to build a distributed network, and any user can obtain blockchain data from different data sources, and the ledger for storing data in the blockchain adopts a hash chain structure, and any user can easily verify the accuracy of the data sex. Moreover, every interactive operation performed by the blockchain system will be collaboratively processed by distributed nodes, which makes the communication process between the two parties transparent and fair. More importantly, the interactive operations performed by users through the blockchain system will be permanently recorded in the distributed ledger, and the communication content between the two parties supports long-term post-event auditing and accountability. It is precisely because of this that the blockchain is called a new generation of "value Internet", which solves the trust problem that has not been solved in the Internet era in one fell swoop.

So what role does such "strong trust" have for smart agriculture?

Let's take the quality inspection of agricultural products as an example. The traditional agricultural product quality inspection certificate has not been tamper-proof in the true sense, which leads to the inability to transfer "trust" to third parties other than the two parties to the transaction. The typical scenario is that different organizations 1. The issue of "mutual recognition of credentials" between countries. Trusted relationships based on blockchain technology, such as foreign quarantine certificates, can also be used directly in China without the need for secondary verification by intermediaries. For another example, in the countries along the "Belt and Road", if countries need to realize the intercommunication and mutual recognition of "quality inspection certificates", the most ideal way is to achieve it through the blockchain.

This is the value brought by the transfer of "agricultural credit" under blockchain technology, especially in agricultural cross-border trade, changing the traditional "self-certification" of enterprises into "other certificates", which can ensure the authenticity of information. Also greatly increased the cost of counterfeiting.

Looking further,This also provides a breakthrough for small and medium-sized agricultural industry companies to solve financing problems.As we all know, for the sake of risk control, banks are often only willing to provide factoring business, advance payment or inventory financing to the first-tier suppliers who have direct payable obligations to the core enterprises in the supply chain.

As a result, the needs of downstream suppliers or dealers with huge financing needs cannot be met, and the problem of difficult and expensive financing for small and medium-sized enterprises cannot be well resolved. Under the strong trust relationship of the blockchain, open and transparent multi-party reconciliation can be realized, which ensures the accuracy of the data, and enables financing institutions to re-evaluate the control model, which is ultimately conducive to building a more stable and reliable agricultural financial ecosystem.

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Window of opportunity for blockchain + smart agriculture

But generally speaking, blockchain technology is still in the early stages of development, and there are still many controversies and problems in both technology and application. However, for many enterprises engaged in the agricultural industry, it is not so much a problem as a "window" of opportunity for overtaking on curves in the process of technological development.

The first is the blockchain standard issue, which is the cornerstone of technological development.At present, there are only three standards in my country's national standard projects, namely: 20173824-T-469 Blockchain and Distributed Accounting Technology Reference Architecture, 20201615-T-469 Blockchain and Distributed Accounting Technology Smart Contract Implementation Specification, 20201612-T-469 Blockchain and Distributed Accounting Technology Deposit Application Guidelines.

Generally speaking, blockchain standards are divided into international standards, national standards, industry standards, local standards and group standards, while blockchain standards in the field of smart agriculture are currently blank. For enterprises, if they can participate in the formulation of national standards and form an industry consensus, they will undoubtedly be in a leading position in the future domestic and international competition.

The second is the relationship between safety and efficiency.In the data storage system of the distributed ledger, each data storage is full, which provides the necessary conditions for the traceability and transparency of blockchain data. However, as the amount of data increases, full data storage will undoubtedly face the problem of data redundancy, but this has been solved to a certain extent with the development of alliance chain technology. In this year's "14th Five-Year Plan" , The country also regards the alliance chain as the development direction of the country's key support in the future.

Finally, there is the issue of incentives.Summarize

Summarize

Of course, the difficulties and opportunities do not stop there. Wanglian Technology believes that as an important component of the underlying technology of the digital economy, the trustworthy foundation of the blockchain is increasingly solid, the information environment it faces is constantly improving, and its own efficiency and security are continuously improving. In the future, under the multiple promotion of policies, funds and markets, it will play an important supporting role in the high-quality development of the agricultural industry.

Everything has two sides, and so does blockchain technology. Only by constantly meeting the challenges of the times and seeking advantages and avoiding disadvantages can enterprises obtain the great opportunities presented by the times.