The Dairy Farmers of America (DFA), a cooperative society comprising of 8500 dairy farms in the United States, is expanding their range by using the robust features of blockchain technology. Initially, they have planned a test launch to see the enhancement in the supply chain of dairy products using blockchain technology. The focus of the program is to connect farmers with the customer without hampering the freshness of the product and remove the complexities of the supply network.
To initiate it, DFA is partnering with ripe.io that combine IOT and blockchain to form what they call ‘The Blockchain of Food ‘. Ripe.io already have a fully developed system to track food starting from farmers to the end customer and this is what DFA requires to ensure the fresh supply of their dairy products. Therefore, in order to ensure the freshness, dairy products are kept in cool temperature during transport. This is where the IOT integration with blockchain plays a crucial role by allowing the temperature data to be stored in an immutable ledger.
David Darr, the vice president of Sustainability and Member Services said that in order to increase trust among the customers they should provide real-time data of the whole production activity from where it comes, how it is delivered and so on just like ripe.io. There are different blockchain applications for agriculture but the main focus behind all these is to help the dairy farmers and improve the supply chain network.
There is a reason why blockchain technology is perfect for the supply chain because it provides a cryptographically secure ledger which means that the data stored in it cannot be manipulated. This gives a reliable record of the movement of dairy products from farm to store. Inefficiency in the system can be easily tracked and removed with blockchain, which will develop a strong and shorter supply chain network. This will ultimately result in more profits and better user experience.