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A glimpse into the latest blockchain initiative in India

As per the latest news on blockchain technology, the Coffee Board of India has recently pioneered the pilot of blockchain-driven e-marketplace. The initiative has been taken to coalesce coffee farmers with markets. The Indian Ministry of Commerce and Industry has announced this development recently. The project was announced back in September 2018 by Suresh Prabhu, Minister for Commerce and Industry.

The Coffee Board is an organization that is backed by the MCI in order to promote coffee production in India. The venture will result in the reduction of intermediaries between coffee farmers and consumers. The blockchain-driven marketplace will facilitate the direct transaction between coffee producers and multiple buyers. This will enable better returns for the growers. The money that was consumed earlier by the middlemen can be put together and added to the income of coffee growers.

The initiative has been named as the Coffee Blockchain initiative. The pilot of the initiative has been activated simultaneously by Jose Dauster Sette, executive director of the International Coffee Organization, Nairobi and by India's commerce secretary, Anup Wadhawan. This is reportedly the third attempt at creating a coffee blockchain after France and Ethiopia.

The project took six months to be unveiled after its announcement due to the challenge of having more than 20 stakeholders on board from three different countries testing the platform. This statement has come from Srivatsa Krishna, chief executive officer and secretary of the Coffee Board. In India, coffee cultivation takes place in about 4,54,000 hectares of land by 3,66,000 farmers. Among them, 95 percent are small-scale farmers whose income is still meager. Krishna said that the primary objective behind using blockchain is to induce transparency in the Indian coffee trade, maintain traceability of coffee from bean to cup, and allow fairer income possibility for the labor put in by the coffee growers.

According to the crypto technology news, the project has been initiated in collaboration with Eka Software Solutions. It is one of the global leaders in Digital Commodity Management platforms for agriculture, especially for the development of blockchain-based marketplace applications. Manav Garg, the CEO, and Founder of Eka Software Solutions has stated that the main idea behind using blockchain is to record the first smart contract on the blockchain with more than 20 stakeholders and establish trust in the e-marketplace. Garg further added that this activation will aid the Coffee Board of India in driving the Indian coffee trade leave an impression on the global premium market. He firmly believes that India will become one of the top three coffee producers in the world.  

According to Krishna, the Coffee Board is also testing a couple of other vendors for testing blockchain-based solutions. However, it found the one from Eka Software Solutions the most suitable for the time being.  

The official statement from the Coffee Board mentions that the stakeholders such as coffee farmers, curers, traders, exporters, importers, rosters, and retailers will be required to register on the new blockchain-based platform before making trade transactions. For example, a farmer has to store details about the place where coffee is grown, elevation details, crop details, certificates or any other relevant information.

The blockchain vendor is excited about this project and reckons that digitization of agriculture in India would curb waste. The deployment of blockchain technology can prove to be fruitful for other agricultural commodities too. Coffee on blockchain is the first step towards achieving the significant goal as digitization of agriculture in India. In a country like India where farmers struggle to make ends meet, convincing for blockchain technology is still a challenging affair.