RiceChain: secure and traceable rice supply chain framework using blockchain technology

Abstract

The increasing number of rice product safety issues and the potential for contamination have established an enormous need for an effective strategy for thetraceability of the rice supply chain. Tracing the origins of a rice product from rawmaterials to end customers is very complex and costly. Existing food supply chainmethods (for example, rice) do not provide a scalable and cost-effective means ofagricultural food supply. Besides, consumers lack the capability and resourcesrequired to check or report on the quality of agricultural goods in terms of defects orcontamination. Consequently, customers are forced to decide whether to utilize ordiscard the goods. However, blockchain is an innovative framework capable ofoffering a transformative solution for the traceability of agricultural products andfood supply chains. The aim of this paper is to propose a framework capable oftracking and monitoring all interactions and transactions between all stakeholdersin the rice chain ecosystem through smart contracts. The model incorporates asystem for customer satisfaction feedback, which enables all stakeholders to getup-to-date information on product quality, enabling them to make more informedsupply chain decisions. Each transaction is documented and stored in the publicledger of the blockchain. The proposed framework provides a safe, efficient, reliable,and effective way to monitor and track rice products safety and quality especiallyduring product purchasing. The security and performance analysis results showsthat the proposed framework outperform the benchmark techniques in termsof cost-effectiveness, security and scalability with low computational overhead