Improved services traceability and management of a food value chain using block-chain network: a case of Nigeria

Abstract

Competitive asset markets and increased globalization have continued to ripple the food value chain with complex dynamics, which has led to a range of challenges such as food safety and quality, traceability, and overall supply chain inefficiency. These have further continued to endanger the general well-being of society. With rice as a staple food in Nigeria, the rice food supply value chain consists of a series of tasks, processes, and activities that are linked together from freshly harvested products to consumer demand and supply. Study advances the SmartRice, a sensor-based block-chain framework that decentralizes as well as provides a decision-support for the food supply value chain process by first ensuring that accurate data of harvested goods are reported, and passed on to a chain. The study advances a decentralized framework to eliminate various forms of fraud rippled across the existing centralized system, minimize corruption through its sensor-based layered model as well as minimize the error in reported data along the value chain.