Healthy, sustainable, and inclusive food systems are essential for achieving global development goals. Agriculture stands as a cornerstone of global development, playing a crucial role in ending poverty, boosting prosperity, and ensuring food security for a growing world population. As we face the challenge of feeding a projected 10 billion people by 2050, the transformation of our food systems becomes increasingly urgent.
Agriculture drives economic growth
Agricultural development is one of the most powerful tools to combat extreme poverty and foster shared prosperity. It plays a vital role in economic growth, accounting for approximately 4% of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Furthermore, agriculture provides employment for around 27% of the global workforce and is crucial for food security, particularly in developing regions. Notably, growth in the agriculture sector is two to four times more effective in raising incomes among the poorest populations compared to other sectors. (World Bank, 2024)
Despite its importance, agriculture faces several pressing challenges:
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Climate Change: Extreme weather events and shifting growing seasons destabilize agricultural systems.
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Soil Degradation: Intensive farming practices reduce productivity and increase vulnerability to environmental shocks.
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Water Scarcity: Over-extraction and pollution threaten agricultural productivity, especially in arid regions.
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Biodiversity Loss: Monoculture and chemical inputs compromise the resilience of agricultural ecosystems.
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Limited Access: Smallholder farmers often lack access to modern technologies, financial services, and markets.
The Promise of Digital Transformation: High-Trust at Low-Cost
To address these challenges, countries and organizations are turning to cutting-edge technology with the Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) approach, to drive inclusive growth, empower citizens, and enable society to leap forward.
When seen from a DPI lens, the digital economy is built on three key pillars: Identity, Assets, and Transactions—essentially answering the questions: Who am I? What do I have? What do I do with it?
In agriculture, the digital identity, tokenized assets, and open-transaction networks could manifest as - digital, verifiable, and tokenized—Farmer registries, Land registries, Land ownership records, Soil health cards, Crop sown certificates, Organic agriculture certifications, Open-network Marketplaces.. and so on.
Through registries, credentials, and tokenization, we can revolutionize the agriculture industry by introducing digital verifiability, fractional ownership, and liquidity of assets. This enables faster and more efficient trade of farm produce, the creation of high-trust marketplaces, and greater transparency and traceability throughout the supply chain. By leveraging these, we can reduce fraud and counterfeiting, empower smallholder farmers with access to financial services, and promote sustainable agricultural practices. Ultimately, these innovations can improve food security, enhance economic opportunities, and create a more resilient and equitable food system.
The Power of Digital Registries and Verifiable Credentials
Traditional paper-based systems are costly and inefficient, often involving high costs and low trust. The expenses associated with issuing and delivering paper certificates, losing originals, requesting duplicates, and conducting background checks can be overwhelming for individuals and organizations alike.
Transitioning to digital registries and verifiable credentials can:
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Empower Farmers: Improve access to credit, insurance, government schemes, disaster recovery plans, and market participation.
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Streamline Subsidies and Aid: Safeguard against supply chain disruptions, unexpected climate changes, and ensure fair market practices.
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Enhance Observability: Provide credible data to inform policy reforms, reward sustainable farming practices, and monitor soil health at scale.
Building Trust Through Registries and Credentials
Digital registries and Verifiable credentials can establish high-trust at low-cost by:
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Reducing costs through trusted sources of information
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Preventing repetitive data collection
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Enabling instant verification of farmers’ identities, land ownership, and assets
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Empowering farmers with multimodal document sharing
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Creating an interoperable and decentralized source of truth
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Improving accessibility and inclusion of services
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Fostering innovation and collaboration within the ecosystem
As an example, the AgriStack initiative in India, is implementing a comprehensive digital framework that includes farmer and farmland registries, crop registries, and a unified farmer service interface. This initiative aims to connect government departments, private enterprises, and social organizations through a robust digital infrastructure. This digital infrastructure aims to unite government departments, private enterprises, and social organizations. Additionally, open-source digital public goods like Sunbird RC, Inji, and CORD are available for anyone to adopt in their solutions.
Let’s Imagine a Sustainable Future
A Farmer's Journey: From Seed to Market
Meet Amina, a smallholder farmer. She cultivates a few acres of land, growing maize and cassava.Traditional methods and limited access to markets have constrained her income and ability to expand her farm.
Seed Registry and Verifiable Credentials: Amina purchases certified maize seeds from a local cooperative. The seeds are registered in a blockchain-based registry, ensuring their quality and provenance. Amina receives a verifiable credential that confirms the seed's authenticity. This protects her investment and increases her chances of a successful harvest.
Asset Tokenization: As her crops mature, Amina tokenizes a portion of her maize harvest. These tokens represent ownership of the maize and can be traded on a decentralized marketplace. This allows her to access a global market and potentially sell her harvest at a higher price than she could through traditional channels.
Traceability and Sustainability: The registry and tokenization system also ensures the traceability of Amina's maize. Consumers can verify where the maize was grown, the farming practices used, and whether it meets sustainability standards. This can increase demand for Amina's produce and premium prices.
Financial Inclusion: By tokenizing her assets, Amina can access financial services, such as loans and insurance, that were previously unavailable to her. These services can help her invest in improvements to her farm, expand her operations, and weather unexpected challenges.
Let’s co-create a DPI Stack for Open Agri Net
The DPI approach for trust, tokenization & data sharing, when combined with open-networks and artificial intelligence, has the potential to unlock vast opportunities. Together, we can work towards ending world hunger, creating sustainable food production systems, reducing inequalities, safeguarding against supply chain disruptions, and a thriving economy.
Let us envision a future where minimalist digital public infrastructure empowers individuals, facilitates consent-driven data sharing, lowers service costs, and expands inclusive access to opportunities. By infusing high-trust and transact-ability into our economies through registries, credentialized records, and tokenized assets that are reusable across sectors, we can transform the agricultural landscape for the better.
Together, we can build a more sustainable, inclusive, and prosperous future for agriculture and the world!
SurendraSingh Sucharia
Vice President - Product & Technology, Dhiway
Product Lead - Sunbird RC
Note: Help of technology, such as Generative AI, Search, and Internet, was taken for research, paraphrasing and reframing parts of this article/document.