Blockchain: The Evolutionary Next Step for ICT E-Agriculture
by
Yu-Pin Lin 1,*
, Joy R. Petway 1, Johnathen Anthony 1, Hussnain Mukhtar 1, Shih-Wei Liao 2, Cheng-Fu Chou 2 and Yi-Fong Ho 3
Yu-Pin Lin 1,*, Joy R. Petway 1, Johnathen Anthony 1, Hussnain Mukhtar 1, Shih-Wei Liao 2, Cheng-Fu Chou 2 and Yi-Fong Ho 3
1
Department of Bioenvironmental Systems Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, Taiwan
2
Department of Computer Science & Information Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, Taiwan
3
Department of Irrigation and Engineering, Council of Agriculture Executive Yuan, Taipei 10014, Taiwan
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Environments 2017, 4(3), 50; https://doi.org/10.3390/environments4030050
Received: 10 May 2017 / Revised: 10 July 2017 / Accepted: 14 July 2017 / Published: 18 July 2017
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Information and Communication Technologies for Improving Monitoring and Management Schemes in Agricultural Environments)
Blockchain technology, while still challenged with key limitations, is a transformative Information and Communications Technology (ICT) that has changed our notion of trust. Improved efficiencies for agricultural sustainable development has been demonstrated when ICT-enabled farms have access to knowledge banks and other digital resources. UN FAO-recommended ICT e-agricultural infrastructure components are a confluence of ICT and blockchain technology requirements. When ICT e-agricultural systems with blockchain infrastructure are immutable and distributed ledger systems for record management, baseline agricultural environmental data integrity is safeguarded for those who participate in transparent data management. This paper reviewed blockchain-based concepts associated with ICT-based technology. Moreover, a model ICT e-agriculture system with a blockchain infrastructure is proposed for use at the local and regional scale. To determine context specific technical and social requirements of blockchain technology for ICT e-agriculture systems, an evaluation tool is presented. The proposed system and tool can be evaluated and applied to further developments of e-agriculture systems.
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Keywords:
blockchain; precision agriculture; Information Communication Technology; environmental monitoring system; environmental data; agricultural data; evaluation tool; e-agriculture; distributed ledger; internet of things
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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Lin, Y.-P.; Petway, J.R.; Anthony, J.; Mukhtar, H.; Liao, S.-W.; Chou, C.-F.; Ho, Y.-F. Blockchain: The Evolutionary Next Step for ICT E-Agriculture. Environments 2017, 4, 50.
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