Estevan Amatdoelrasit

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There is no one who denies that blockchain is going to disrupt many sectors. With the emerge of Decentralized Finance (DeFi) everyone will have access to financial services (e.g. trading, lending, borrowing, payments) in the future without the fulfilling the requirements of traditional financial entities (Sheinix, 2020). However, besides DeFi there is another huge real-world blockchain application that might benefit our safety, health and climate; food supply chain traceability.

Today’s food producing companies seek for a more precise and accurate supply chain food traceability as their consumers are demanding that their food is both safe and environmental-friendly produced. Take for instance the outbreak of the E. coli outbreak that was linked to Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurants, which was caused by the lack of transparency across their supply chain. In addition, the global damage as a result of ‘food fraud’ and lack of food traceability is estimated at $50b per annum (Bindt, 2016). Traceability refers to tracking the whole process from production to consumption; it is all about safe food trade, ensure trust among supply chain participants and to prevent future disease outbreaks.

There are several reasons of why blockchain technology will contribute to a greener and safer food supply chain. First, blockchain technology provides better traceability. All food trades and concerned transactions cannot be deleted afterwards or hidden as every change is tracked, recorded and showed to the all blockchain network participants (e.g. producer, distributor, supermarkets, and consumers). Second, blockchain technology stores all data in a decentralized ledger. This means that there is no single server or entity who has the power to keep food information hidden; multiple copies across the world are saved on different computers. (Civati, 2021) As the fundamental core competences of blockchain technology relies on trust, transparency and no need for central authority, this technology are particularly helpful with:

Hampering food damage or preventing food fraud
Realizing on-time mass recalls of contaminated food as more accurate and precise food information is provided
Decreasing food spoiling
Stimulating food companies to produce fair-trade food and pay their suppliers fair prices for the products they buy.
Strengthening the relationship between food companies and their customers.

Although the potential of blockchain technology on the food supply chain seems promising, there is one main limitation to consider. In order to successfully adapt blockchain in the food supply chain, the overall cost of implementing such a technology is highly unpredictable because of its relative young existence (Simal-Gandara, Galvez, & Mejuto, 2018). Nevertheless, as major companies such as Walmart and Nestlé adopting blockchain technology, I truly that more companies will follow them in order to achieve a common goal; a safer and healthier life for all.

Video 1: Walmart’s food safety solution using IBM Food Trust built on the IBM Blockchain Platform

References:

Sheinix. (2020, January 27). DeFi: The Future of Finance? From Medium: https://medium.com/swlh/defi-the-future-of-finance-757c35a2bcfd

Bindt, V. (2016). Costs and benefits of the Food Fraud Vulnerability Assessment in the Dutch food supply chain.Wageningen : Wageningen University.

Civati, A. (2021, April 9). Blockchain & Food Traceability. From LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/blockchain-food-traceability-alessandro-civati/

Simal-Gandara, J., Galvez, J., & Mejuto, J. (2018). Future challenges on the use of blockchain for food traceability analysis. TrAC Trends in Analytical Chemistry , 222-232.

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There has been clear communication that advocates two opposing views adopting cloud based (remote) working for the quality of life: a firm should stimulate remote working versus a firm should stimulate offline working. According to C. Jalagat and M. Jalagat (2019), remote working can be defined as performing work – from any location where Wi-Fi is present and Cloud Computing is adopted by the company – other than the location of the employer. I believe that adapting cloud computing is beneficial for our daily life. Even after the Covid-19 pandemic as well (see Figure 1).

The first benefit of remote working is that the sickness rate is 0.5 lower among people who work remotely compared to those who work in the office (PWC, s.a.). PWC hypothesizes that remote workers can give more attention to their children, their stress levels drop significantly, and burnout problems are prevented. The second benefit is that remote working via cloud services – most of that eco-friendly generated – increases air quality and protects our climate; in city of Phoenix it resulted in 1.3 million fewer miles driven, which equates to over 47,000 pounds less air pollutant emissions each day (Irwin, 2004). Higher air quality is correlated with a longer average life span, and therefore, it is important that we ensure our own future and the future of today’s youth.

There are also two disadvantages. The first disadvantage is that companies that encourage remote working deliberately expect their employees to be available at all times (Bijen, 2021). She argues that remote workers are continuously busy with finishing their notifications after work hours; it disrupts daily routines such as eating or raising children (Manocka , 2020). The second drawback is that remote working contribute to the disappearance of many management positions. Current technology is capable of continuously tracking and assessing employees for productivity, thus, companies are experiencing a lesser need for managers to make decisions on behalf of their employees (Morse, 2020).

I believe that our health and prevent air pollution is central to the quality of life. Quality of life is subjective and is complicated to measure. However, what is our life worth if we experience health issues, or if in five years’ time it is determined that we will not meet the Paris Agreement? One could argue against my position that health can be maintained without remote working. While people are indeed capable of taking personal responsibility for maintaining their health, we must remember that people cannot tackle this problem individually. There is also concern that remote working may mean that companies expect us to sacrifice our free time for work. However, the Dutch government is working on a bill that would give homeworkers more rights to remain unreachable after work (Bijen, 2021). As a well-known saying goes, “Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important in life”.

**Figure 1:** Worldwide Public Cloud Services End-User Spending Forecast (Millions of U.S. Dollars)

References:

Jalagat, C., & Jalagat, M. (2019). RATIONALIZING REMOTE WORKING CONCEPT AND ITS IMPLICATIONS ON EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY. Global Journal of Advanced Research, 95-100.

PWC. (z.j.). The costs and benefits of working from home. PWC.

Irwin, F. (2004, Januari). GAINING THE AIR QUALITY AND CLIMATE BENEFIT FROM TELEWORK. Retrieved from http://pdf.wri.org/teleworkguide.pdf

Bijen, M. (2021). Wetsvoorstel: thuiswerker moet recht krijgen onbereikbaar te zijn buiten werktijd. Retrieved from Het Parool: https://www.parool.nl/nederland/wetsvoorstel-thuiswerker-moet-recht-krijgen-onbereikbaar-te-zijn-buiten-werktijd~b88e4da5/?referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F

Morse, J. (2020, December). Amazon announces new employee tracking tech, and customers are lining up. Retrieved from Mashable: https://mashable.com/article/amazon-aws-panorama-worker-customer-tracking-technology-smart-cameras/?europe=true

Manocka, I. (2020). Covid-19: Teleworking, Surveillance and 24/7 Work. Some Reflexions on the Expected Growth of Remote Work After the Pandemic. Political Anthropological Research on International Social Sciences (PARISS).

Will blockchain technology revolutionize the food supply chain industry?

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