UPDATED 13:13 EDT / JULY 07 2021

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Heifer and IBM use blockchain and AI to help Honduran coffee and cocoa farmers

IBM Corp. and Heifer International announced today that blockchain-based IBM Food Trust and artificial intelligence platform IBM Watson are being used to help small-scale coffee and cocoa farmers in Honduras get higher crop yields and access new markets.

Food Trust uses blockchain technology to track products from farm to point of sale, providing transparency along the entire supply chain. It is currently being used by coffee farmers in the Cooperativa Regional Agroforestal Nuevas Ideas Limitada, a farmer cooperative, and cocoa farmers that are part of Heifer’s Chocolate4All project.

According to a study published by Heifer International small-scale farmers operate at an average of 46% to 59% loss because of excessive middlemen. Increased transparency enables end buyers more opportunity to understand whom they are buying from and thus can create a competitive advantage for small-scale coffee and cocoa farmers.

“For 18 months, we’ve worked alongside farmers to identify the best ways to improve production processes, digitize the value chain, and ultimately open market access to smallholder farmers so they can secure premium prices,” said Jesús Pizarro, vice president of Financial Innovation at Heifer International.

Watson Decision Platform for Agriculture, an artificial intelligence platform, is also being deployed in Honduras by IBM and Heifer International together with CATIE, an organization focused on sustainability and human wellbeing in Latin America.

The system will use predictive AI to deliver weather alerts, seasonal information, optimal planting patterns and expected yields linked to market pricing. Using its dashboard, farmers will be able to make better decisions on how to use their land based on what crops they have and what they can take to market and thus increase their income for coffee and cocoa. Last year, COPRANIL produced about 1.6 million pounds of coffee beans.

“Our work with Heifer International and COPRANIL is an important test of how AI and blockchain technology can advance social good and support sustainability by helping even small-scale producers,” said Kareem Yusuf, Ph.D., IBM general manager of AI Applications and Blockchain.

The cooperative operators hope to use the Food Trust eventually to also track documents used by traders and exporters, including bills of lading, invoices, purchase orders, sales orders and certificates. The result would be a reduction in total paperwork and increased transaction speed.

The IBM Food Trust network was founded in 2017 to increase food safety by enabling the tracking and tracing of foods from the farm to the retail shelf. Numerous different foods have been tracked using blockchain technology, including olive oil, romaine lettuce and milk.

Earlier this year, Coffee Shift Inc. explored the use of blockchain technology to assist Columbian bean farmers cut out middlemen for direct-to-consumer coffee subscription sales.

Photo: Pixabay

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