On Blockchain, Agriculture, Alibaba/Ant and Bayer Crop Science

Photo by Peter Gonzalez

Recently, Alibaba Group’s Ant Financial Services Group announced a partnership with Bayer Crop Science to build a blockchain based agriculture tracking platform.

• George Jiang, General Manager of Ant Financials’ Intelligent Technology Group said “We are excited to join hands with Bayer Crop Science to explore the application of blockchain technology in agriculture. Agriculture is the foundation of human civilization ….

• "Together with Bayer, our exploration of blockchain in agriculture will improve the transparency and responsiveness of its supply chain, and bring more value to consumers, farmers and the society.”

• Weidong Huang, head of Bayer Crop Science in China said, “By working side-by-side, we strive to assist the agriculture industry on its transformation in the new era, enhance the application of advanced agricultural technologies, increase agriculture production efficiency, improve farmers’ incomes, and protect food safety …

• "We look forward to working with more partners and consumers to form a new value chain of agricultural products market

• Notes: 1) Ant Financial has about 40 blockchain projects underway in areas such as supply chain, remittance, finance, and online tracking. The firm's Alipay platform is China’s largest mobile payment service. 2) Bayer Crop Science’s other blockchain efforts include a relationship with ConsenSys spinout BlockApps. Bayer acquired Monsanto in 2018.

OUR TAKE

• Applying blockchains to agricultural supply chains is a compelling use case, where the technology can help ensure product integrity/authenticity as it moves among varied supply chain participants.

• Successful deployment of the Ant/Bayer service will require 1) the cooperation of many market participants and 2) providing a cost effective and easy to use service.

• Innovation in agricultural markets will increase - driven by advances in plant genome research, automation/robotics, computer vision, sensors, data aggregation, indoor/vertical production and more.