A Permissioned Blockchain for Agricultural Supply Chain Traceability

Design and Pilot Evaluation for Smallholder Coffee

Abstract

Specialty coffee buyers increasingly ask for verifiable information about origin and processing, which smallholder cooperatives struggle to provide. This paper designs a permissioned blockchain in which farmers, cooperatives, processors, and exporters record harvest, processing, and shipment events, and buyers verify a lot through a QR code. A pilot with two cooperatives recorded 340 lots over one harvest season. Recording an event took a median of 1.8 seconds, and the cost of operating the network was below one percent of the price premium paid for traceable lots. Interviews showed that farmers valued being named on the provenance page, while cooperatives raised concerns about data entry during peak harvest. The pilot indicates that permissioned blockchains can support traceability if data entry is kept simple.