52 | Agricultural Innovation in Developing East Asia
BOX 5.3
Blockchain applications in the agri-food system Insurance. The FARMS pilot in Kenya is enabled by a blockchain-based virtual currency platform integrated with remote sensing (satellite) data and mobile money solutions, which ensures transparent, secure transactions and “earmarking” of funds, automated payment, and information dashboards. Farmers set aside money by buying virtual currency “drought coins” or “drought vouchers” that are kept in their personal COIN22 mobile wallet account. When farmers want to withdraw funds, they redeem their drought coins or vouchers. The actual money flows into a trusted bank account (risk pool), and through full systems integration all transactions are in real time. Cash transfers. The World Food Programme is testing blockchain as part of its “Building Blocks” pilot, to make cash transfers more efficient, secure, and transparent. The World Food Programme is also using blockchain to deliver food assistance more effectively to Syrian refugees in Jordan. Land registration. The United Nations Development Programme in India is working with partners to make land registry more reliable. At a high level, this project will capture and permanently record each transaction throughout the sale of a property.
Fisheries sector. The World Wide Fund for Nature in New Zealand is piloting a project to track and deter illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing and human rights abuse in the Pacific Islands’ tuna industry. The value chain from fish in the vessel to the supermarket can be tracked. AgUnity—a transparent cooperative system in Kenya and Papua New Guinea. AgUnity has developed a solution that is providing a pathway to financial inclusion for the world’s poorest farmers. The AgUnity app is a simple mobile service that helps small farmers plan, trade, and track everyday transactions. This is a way for farmers to cooperate, store value, get paid upon delivery of produce, hire equipment, save money, and easily buy products and services. Carbon credits. Companies such as Poseidon use a blockchain-based system to track an individual’s or company’s carbon footprint and then provide opportunities to offset it. IBM works with Veridium to tokenize carbon credits that are verified by third parties. These are then used to provide incentives to companies to be more environmentally friendly and to offset their carbon footprints.
Source: Adapted from FAO 2019a.
biotechnological applications are in use or under development in the crop sector in the region. These applications range from the less advanced, such as biopesticides, biofertilizers, and tissue-culture techniques, to technically advanced applications such as genetic modification and genome editing of crops (FAO 2019c). Genetically modified crops
Asia has already benefited from biotechnology, including seed and crops that are resistant to flooding, drought, or temperature changes (box 5.4) or pests (Fuglie et al. 2020; Green 2018; ISAAA 2019). Globally, Brazil, India, and the United States are frontrunners in the development and adoption of genetically modified (GM) crops. GM crops have also been approved in several developing East Asian countries for commercial production (table D.1 in appendix D), and a wide range of new food and raw material crops and traits are either at the experimental stage or in field trials.8 China has led the development of GM crops in East Asia (box 5.5). Attitudes among farmers are generally positive because GM crops can
