As originally reported by FoodNavigator-Asia, the Coalition Government of Australia provided the Sustainable Sugar Project a grant of A$2.25m. The sugar industry of Australia is worth a $1.75 billion and makes the nation the third-largest exporter of sugar worldwide.

The project, led by Queensland Cane Growers, aims to implement the Smartcane Best Management Practice, using blockchain technology. The Smartcane BMP was made possible with the collaboration of researchers and farmers who agreed upon standards such as profitability, productivity, and sustainability.

A spokeswoman from Canegrowers told FoodNavigator-Asia,

“The sustainable sugar project aims to meet the needs of end-users who require sustainably produced sugar and to develop transparency around a market for that sugar. By using Smartcane BMP and blockchain technology, Canegrowers is seeking to provide provenance for our product, increase our market access and provide greater value to growers and the market.”

According to David Littleproud, an  Agricultural Minister, consumers as well as food manufacturers are looking for sustainable sources of supply and want to know where the sugar comes from. Australia’s Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources further believes that big sugar buyers will pay more for sustainable and fully-traceable food products, as they get more demand from customers.

This is where blockchain comes in. By acting as an immutable database, it is the perfect tool to keep a track of where the sugar came from. The data is not prone to edits or deletions by anyone, which gives consumers full confidence in the product that they are buying.

Blockchain has been of great significance in the area of supply chain management. Every time an item is transferred from one person to another, it can be recorded forever on the blockchain thus, removing delays, costs and the risk of human error. Recording, assigning, linking, tracking and sharing are all tasks, that can be improved with the help of this technology.

In addition to this, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia also completed a global trade experiment by shipping and tracking 17 tonnes of almonds to Germany. Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), smart contracts and IoT were the underlying technologies used to execute this trade.