A TRIAL project between ag-tech start-up AgriDigital and WA agribusiness giant CBH using blockchain technology to execute contracts has been hailed a success, paving the way for further work into scaling up the concept.
The pilot, conducted in South Australia at CBH’s Blue Lake Milling oat facility at Bordertown, found that AgriDigital’s commodity management platform, created utilising blockchain technology could create a real time transfer of contract system.
External relations manager at AgriDigital Bridie Ohlsson said the concept of digital titles had big implications for agriculture.
“We’ve had the theory that it can provide payment security and transparency and now through the trial we have seen it can work in practice,” Ms Ohlsson said.
She said AgriDigital had also been working with Rabobank on a project that the company believes will be able to extend the scope of the technology.
“The work with Rabobank has been about bringing the finance sector into the picture.
“It is essentially an extension of what we were doing with CBH, this time bringing a third party to the table.”
Ms Ohlsson said working with a financier was a big step forward.
“Having the finance sector involved will be a critical part in rolling out the technology on a larger scale.”
CBH officials were also happy with the trial, saying it laid the way for further work in space of digital titles, but added it would take time until the technology could be rolled out over its whole business.
CBH general manager of transformation and technology, Mat Regan said the pilot had gone smoothly.
“CBH has successfully completed two trials on the application of blockchain technology within agricultural supply chains at its wholly owned oat miller, Blue Lake Milling.
“While these trials did show potential for the use of blockchain in agriculture, further digital infrastructure is required to ensure data integrity and potential scalability when used in a large supply chain such as CBH’s system.”
“CBH will continue to maintain a watching brief on blockchain as this technology develops further.”
The concept behind blockchain technology is that it will allow real time execution of sales and provide full traceability.
The system, also known as distributed ledger technology, is an emerging tool that can be used to record transactions digitally.
It allows for the recording of many thousands of transactions on all computers in a network, meaning that each computer has an up to date and accurate record of each transaction.