More than 20 years ago it was reported a set of pioneering studies that emphasized the importance of the relationship between elevated temperature, light and photosynthesis in plants, showing that adaptation of the daily metabolism to periods of a higher heat is advantageous because it allows the acclimatization of the plants to a superior luminous intensity, that occurs in the summer period.

The balance between light capture and its use in the photosynthesis is influenced by oscillations of environmental factors, and this balance was suggested as key for the regulation of the biotic and abiotic interactions in plants. This means that there must be something that integrates these relationships and can distribute its effects. The discovery of a group of genes that results in the regulation of the activity of a molecule (plastoquinone) that links the reactions of energy synthesis to the reactions of carbon fixation synthesis, both during the photosynthesis, allowed to consider that there is a “conductor” to maintain oxidative stress homeostasis in plants in the contexts of an active photosynthesis.

If high temperature affects firstly the plastoquinone, then the light reactions would be the first mechanisms to be affected and the acclimatization to the luminosity would be obligatory in the short term, because if there is more energy and it is obtained through the light, it is necessary to reduce the ability to capture light in order to reduce the amount of energy obtained by it. It is no coincidence that plants with a metabolism adapted to higher temperatures seems to have in common high evapotranspiration rates and a photosynthesis rate correlated with the luminous intensity except in the periods of greater luminosity, in which some can drastically lower the photosynthesis. Even when exposed to combinations of water and heat stress, the first response of the plant is to cool the leaves, although it is at the expense of water loss, that only after is mitigated, often with osmotic adjustment.

Water loss mitigation needs to be done at the expenditure of a reduction of the evapotranspiration, that is, through stomatal closure, which obviously implies a fine regulation between the control of this process and the control of the leaf cooling, since one occurs at the expense of the other. This regulation seems to be achieved by the balance between the levels of free absicisic acid (ABA) and salicylic acid (SA), and when the ABA dominates we have a bigger closure of the stomas and the consequent decrease of the cooling rate of the leaves; when the SA dominates we have a higher rate of evapotranspiration at the expense of a higher water loss. It turns out that a higher xylemic sap flow, as a consequence of the SA domain over ABA, also seems to be a motor of the hormonal balance beeing completely different from that established when the ABA dominates over SA and in this context the mechanisms of dissipation of excessive energy that accumulates in the energy generation phase of photosynthesis and occurs in thylakoid membranes.

Several studies have been reveling that the submission of plant to a moderate heat, within the range that we can be considered for each species, can largely benefit its ability to adapt to both high temperatures and high light intensities, something that occurs annually in the spring period and that occurs daily in the adaptation to the daily light and thermal amplitudes. More quickly and efficient the plants respond to these variations, better will be their ability to adapt their metabolism in a timely manner and better will be their survival ability. And this could be achieved through plant “practices”, which we call “acclimatization”, and that are always carried out, for example, when moving the plants from the greenhouse to an external environment. However, challenging plants with controlled factors results in a bigger factor-driven adaptation. The main result is, not only the acclimatization to two environmental factors (light and temperature) but also to a third factor, the attack of pathogenic agents, particularly biotrophics. Maintaining SA domain over ABA, promoted by the maintenance of high xylemic flow and mechanism of excessive energy dissipation in thylakoids, seems to stimulate the immunity of plants and contribute to generate a hypersensitive response, or amplify that they already had, an infection in the initial phase or control the number and size of infection foci in plant structures. In conclusion, agricultural production may benefit a lot, in the short and medium terms, from a technological development that allows to capture and retain more water under various physical states and to promote acclimatization-driven plants to face global warming.

Sílvia Ferreira

Yellowpaper promoter

The amount of food lost each year due to post-harvest loss (PHL) is enough to feed the total number of undernourished people globally. Over 870 million people suffer from chronic undernourishment, 27% of which are in Africa alone.1 This challenge is exacerbated by a growing global population, particularly in Africa where the population is expected to grow by 2.5% (1990 to 2020) compared to a global average of 1.1%.

Given the existing food security and increased resource scarcity challenges, the issue of food loss and waste (FLW) has become very important for the international agenda as it has far-reaching social, economic and environmental implications. FLW are of particular concern in the Sub Saharan area. Their reduction is therefore widely acknowledged to contribute to abating interlinked sustainability challenges such as food insecurity, climate change, and water shortage.

Where are we?

According to FAO, about one-third of all food produced worldwide each year is lost or wasted. That represents a total of almost 1.3 billion tonnes. The wastage involves food destined for human consumption, which is lost at all stages of the food system. Such phases act in different ways and at varying levels, according to their place in the food supply chain and the geographical location, as well as the social and economic conditions that prevail.

Developing countries are the worst affected by food losses as part of agricultural production (during harvest, transport, and storage of foodstuffs produced), while higher income countries are mainly affected by food waste at retail and consumer level (in households and catering).

Such polarization of the problem highlights the extent to which inequalities cause dysfunctions: on the one hand there is under-development, which hampers investment in infrastructure, and on the other, there is abundance (often unevenly distributed), which drives wastage.

Insufficient focus on reducing PHL

PHL interventions can have broad economic, health, and environmental impacts. While a PHL intervention will have the primary result of reducing losses, it may also create important secondary impacts; for example, it could improve the livelihoods of farmers and other value chain actors, or provide an opportunity for nutritional security and production diversity, or improve the use of natural resources and stewardship of the broader environment.

Increases in available food are primarily driven by three types of interventions:

Increasing the area of land cultivatedIncreasing yields on existing cultivated landReducing PHL

The majority of efforts have primarily been focused on increasing yields, and for good reason – yields in Africa (1.1 tons per hectare) were approximately one-third of the global average (3.2 tons per hectare) between 2008 and 2010.

At the same time, however, efforts should be intensified to reduce PHL so that more of the food produced actually make it to consumers, for the same level of inputs. This will help to ensure that envisaged improvements in crop production (via improved yields) have the desired impact on food availability for growing Sub Saharan populations.

While increasing crop production has, and continues to, receive great attention, disproportionately fewer resources have been employed to address the related and equally challenging issue of PHL.

Numerous solutions can be employed to reduce PHL and create desired secondary impacts. These solutions can be broadly categorised as product solutions (i.e. technologies – which can be further broken down into storage and handling technologies and value addition technologies) or process solutions (i.e. procurement channels).

Product solutions

Storage and handling solutions refer to those technologies that improve conditions at the storage and handling stage of the value chain and are primarily focused on reducing losses – examples may include hermetic bags or metal silos that allow SHFs to reduce losses by limiting crop.

Other product solutions are primarily focused on value addition (these could also be defined as processing solutions), but also have the effect of decreasing perishability and, thereby reducing PHL. These solutions include mobile processing units (MPUs), solar dryers and graters & pressers. They typically reduce PHL by limiting the handling and transportation of raw crops (if they are employed on- or near-farm) and by increasing shelf life.

Process solutions

Procurement channels are not necessarily designed to reduce PHL; however, their successful implementation allows for the efficient transfer of crops from producers and agro-processors to consumers. This means that crops are less likely to perish while farmers wait for a buyer and, hence, is a critical step in ensuring crops achieve their intended use.

The need for a market-led systemic approach to addressing PHL has become apparent from past failures and emerging successes. The technology push-approach that dominated PHL-related activities in the 1970s and 1980s is still prevalent but has largely not had the desired impact on loss reduction. Traditionally, loss reduction was seen as a stand-alone intervention for improving food security. Triple bagging of cowpea in West and Central Africa, as well as the mechanised harvesting and cleaning of equipment to reduce losses for wheat and maize in Uganda, are good examples of recent interventions that have followed this approach. Despite some success at reducing on or near-farm losses, many interventions of this type have faced challenges in:

Achieving adequate adoptionAttracting sufficient long-term financial supportAchieving sustainabilityAchieving impact at scale andEnsuring food produced makes it to consumers.

Conclusion

The topic of PHL is for really important for me as Cameroon (country were I was born) is the breadbasket of Central Africa, but still we lose 45% of all fruits and vegetables that we produce.

We find more and more cities in Africa with a population in need of new experiences and new products, overall national product, start to have the favor over imported ones not only because they appear to be less expensive but for a matter of local development.

A great number of initiatives are on the track nowadays despite it in my point of the main focus should be on the knowledge sharing (Workshop and formation) and the marketing of a new product.

Willy Gabriel Mboukem II

Founder of PHL Solutions

Man has always used dehydration to conserve his food.

In developed countries nowadays, we continue to dehydrate the most varied products: herbal and medicinal herbs, fruit, vegetables, mushrooms or goji, algae and all nuts. Dehydration is the basis of multiple processes in the pharmaceutical, food or cosmetic industry. [In developing countries, due to the non-existent or reduced cooling network, drying is still the primary method of preserving food, especially fish and cereals, sparing them of post-harvest losses due to deterioration or contamination.]

The quality of the drying requires a balance between the heat supplied and the relative humidity of the air inside the drying chamber. This is the only way to preserve the organoleptic and nutritional characteristics of plant material: stabilizing microbiological activity and chemical and enzymatic reactions. Conventional intensive drying (industrial) has the principle of heating the air that causes evaporation and entrainment of the water – that is, the dehydration of the products. This process is fueled by huge amounts of non-renewable fossil or electric energy.

When we think of solar energy as an alternative to conventional sources, we soon think of its intermittency and low density – the nights and the cloudy days. These factors would make it difficult to obtain a reliable drying system that is capable of operation at reasonably constant temperatures. This system allows at these times to minimize these drawbacks, using an auxiliary energy which ensures the continuity of the drying in a controlled environment.

During the day and whenever atmospheric conditions are favorable, the drying is carried out by convection of the air heated by the Sun and stored in the collectors; during the night and on rainy days, auxiliary equipment is automatically activated using the electric power – the dehumidifier and the heater. These auxiliaries promote dehydration in two ways – mechanical and air exchange with thermal differential, which together with the circulation of hot air are the three forms of drying of this system.

To automate the choice between these forms of drying and thus to take advantage of it, at any moment, in the most efficient way (more economic and faster) an algorithm and a controller that applies it have been developed. It is this controller that is the brain of the system and allows uninterrupted operation of the dehydrator.

It is also this controller that registers the drying parameters for further analysis and statistical treatment, traces drying curves and thus leaves the user to determine the drying, according to its needs or specificity of the final product to be obtained. As an IoT (Internet of Things) equipment, it enables the monitoring and control of drying, anywhere in the world and at any time.

In recent years, we have witnessed the entry into the market of innovative dehydration systems which, with the introduction of new technologies as well as the improvement of existing techniques, are able to overcome the very high energy costs and environmental damage inherent to intensive systems, without compromising the quality of the final product.

One of this systems is BLACKBLOCK ®, a dehydration solution, entirely Portuguese and award winning innovation. This drying system uses the Sun as the main source of thermal energy, which in itself is not new – there were already other natural or forced drying systems that did it. What BLACKBLOCK ® brings back is reliability and accessibility over the internet. This system consists of an isothermal drying chamber covered by thermal panels. Is in this “box” formed by these two elements that the air is heated, by capturing the radiant energy of the Sun and its transformation into thermal energy. Stored in this space, hot air is available to enter the drying chamber with the help of fans.

Built initially for Mediterranean climates like ours, it was designed to operate overseas, but has been adapted to operate inside buildings, particularly in colder climates in northern Europe. It is therefore possible to place it inside installations by moving the panels outwards and conducting the hot air with the help of pipes inwards. It is also possible to choose a mixed use, the equipment is moved to the outside during the day and collected at night. It is this bold solution that is under development for Iceland as part of a Horizon 2020 project, thus launching the Portuguese BLACKBLOCK ® for new challenges!

Gonçalo Costa Martins

Executive Director of BBKW

No matter how efficient food production is, there are always losses along its production and distribution chain, and thus significant quantities of products are lost in the form of waste and by-products. In fact, about 30% of the world food production is wasted and sent to landfill or composting, with the consequent loss of its nutrients, an important environmental and economic resource.

On the other hand, global production of animal feed follow the steady increase in the consumption of animal products, exceeding one billion tonnes by 2016, with this increase in production being associated with the growth in world demand for animal protein. In addition, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that by 2050 the demand for food worldwide has increased by 60% compared to current values and that the production of animal protein increases by 1.7% per year. Of these, meat production is expected to increase by 70%, aquaculture by 90% and milk production by 55%. These increases in consumption relate not only to the increase in population, to 9 billion in 2050, but also to changes in world food habits, with an increase in the consumption of animal products, especially in developing countries.

Currently the ingredients used in the formulation of animal feed include fish meal, fish oil, soy and various types of grains. These ingredients, which are scarce in Portugal, account for a very significant part of the costs of producing compound feedingstuffs and, due to the production increases, their prices have been heavily fluctuating on the world market.

This leads the world animal feed producers to look for sustainable alternatives to traditionally used protein sources. In the case of Portugal, the situation is more pressing since the dependence of these ingredients leads them to be almost entirely imported, especially soybeans, at ever high prices, also causing CO2 emissions associated with transportation from other parts of the globe. The development of a nutritional alternative would be extremely advantageous for producers and manufacturers of animal feed in Portugal. The ideal would be to find solutions that can be used in the national space and that take advantage of economically accessible resources.

The search for solutions to these challenges is central to the activity of several companies worldwide. Among the different strategies the use of insects as a tool in the valorization of by-products and as a nutritional source has gained more and more adepts. However, this solution is only feasible if these animals are produced on a large scale in a controlled, efficient and economical way. However, this commitment has gained in importance because, in addition to the potential to value by-products of agri-food production, the use of insects also ensures the production of an innovative nutritional source of high quality and competitive in the international market of animal feed.

The principle behind the use of insects is the circular economy, and the goal is to value nutrients and return them to the agri-food value chain. The largest ally in this demand is the Black Soldier Fly, an insect specie that in its larval stage has the ability to convert a wide variety of wastes.

The larvae of these flies are currently fed exclusively with vegetable by-products which in a few days are converted into organic fertilizers, which can be used directly in agricultural soils. This process also results in the production of large numbers of larvae, insects that never reach the fly phase and are subsequently processed and farmed to be used as a nutritional source in animal feed.

The use of insects in animal feed, as well as human nutrition, is a hot topic at international level and several companies are emerging to invest in this type of solution in various parts of the globe. In addition, the first regulatory changes for the use of insects as a nutritional source also begin to exist. As a result, one of these first amendments entered into force in July 2017, and allows the use of insect protein in aquaculture fish feed in the European space, an extremely important step for this sector and for the international insect production industry.

There are strong indicators that this nature-inspired solution will be part of the future of agricultural production, as it not only maximizes the profitability of natural and nutritional resources, but also contributes to the sustainability of the agro-food sector.

Daniel Murta

Founder EntoGreen

The agricultural sector faces a number of challenges that have global implications, such as water and other resources scarcity, climate change and world population growth, among others. The use of technology appears as a useful tool to face these challenges, being digitisation and the use of mobile devices key-factors for its penetration in agriculture. However, agriculture is one of the least digitalised sectors in the world.

In recent years, particularly since 2014, there has been considerable growth in startups that are developing technological solutions for the agricultural sector worldwide. The investment in agtech startups has grown exponentially and by 2017 this investment has already exceeded 100 million dollars.

The agricultural sector has attracted special attention from these startups who have changed it in several aspects, bringing the technology to solve many of its challenges. Agricultural management software, precision agriculture and predictive analytics, robotics and drones, sensors and intelligent irrigation are some of the areas where startups are bringing disruption to the sector.

Technology is changing the lives of consumers and businesses at unprecedented speed, and the agricultural sector is no exception. Those who do not follow this transformation will become obsolete faster than you can imagine.

Agrifood companies will necessarily have to start looking at startups as a source of innovation and technology. In an increasingly global and networked world, the ability of a given company to remain disruptive is reduced, since no one has all the knowledge and skills to innovate alone. It is necessary to innovate together and nowadays we are seeing an unprecedented movement, where big companies collaborate with startups.

Who is Amazon or Uber of agriculture? What are the business trends that are emerging globally? Identifying these disruptive models will be key to understanding how the agricultural sector will evolve over the coming decades.

I believe that collaboration with startups is a new source of innovation for agrifood companies. Traditionally, innovation is developed through internal R&D nuclei or in collaboration with entities within the scientific and technological system, such as universities or research centres.

And why are startups this new source of innovation for established companies? Because startups have in their essence what established companies do not have and that in the global world we live in is the key to success: agility.

Two of the general principles of this agility are:

1. Rather than spend months planning and researching, startups accept that everything they own on the day they start is a series of untested assumptions (i.e. they just have good guesses ...).

2. Startups use the “Get Out of the Building” approach, ie "go out into the street" to test their hypotheses, gathering evidence to see if they are true or false. In this process, a great deal of emphasis is placed on the agility with which startups can build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), which is then presented to potential users. After feedback, startups review their hypotheses and change or validate it depending on the results.

This agility in developing solutions is one of the great advantages of working with startups, since much of the hard work is already done, and the solution (usually) is built. The company will act as a scale and distribution machine, leveraging startup technology and accelerating its time to market.

But like in everything in life, the picture is not all rosy. Working with startups may be a difficult task at the outset, since they are two very distinct worlds with different languages.

The entry of a partner entity that facilitates this relationship between startups and companies is crucial for successful partnerships. This entity should know startups and understand the needs of the companies. In Portugal, one of the entities that has fostered this process of collaborative innovation is INOVISA, through the cropUP initiative.

The goal is to support entrepreneurs and startups to develop solutions that bring innovation to the sector, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, to support companies in the agrifood and forestry sector to collaborate with startups. An agtech innovation ecosystem is being created around the world and Portugal cannot be left out. It is crucial that more entrepreneurs look to the agricultural sector as a potential market for their technological solutions and that more companies in the sector absorb this innovation. As Portugal is highly qualified in terms of technical staff related to technology and being a country with excellent agriculture, we will have all the ingredients to be able to create several competitive agtech businesses on a global scale.

Cristina Mota Capitão

cropUP

According to FAO study “Looking ahead in world food and agriculture: Perspectives to 2050” world population is expected to grow and food production must increase by 70% in the 2050 to meet the increasing demand. This and the necessity to reduce the ecological footprint of food production represent a huge challenge for the agri-food sector. Otherwise, due to climate change and variables that intervene in the system, maintaining optimal conditions is increasingly difficult and mistakes in crop management can create serious damage to the company’s economic sustainability.

[Nitrogen prescription map]

In order to remain competitive, agricultural producers need rapid access to emerging technologies.

Farmer, agronomist and other operators of agricultural world needs to optimizing agronomic practices for reduce treatments costs, reduce product losses and improve crop quality and furthermore produce in a sustainable way. These important points must be consider for be competitive on the market and comply with national and international rules.

Information and communication technologies (ICT) for some time now offers new perspectives and challenges in the agricultural sector. Software and other new technologies in support of agricultural management have spread due to the significant benefits that these systemsthey can provide. New management systems and new machinery machineries are changing the approach of agricultural operators to crops’ issues, agricultural decisions and to the agriculturalfield operations, generating athe so-called “third green revolution” in this sector.

The increasing use of ICT in agriculture generated a new farm management strategy to guide farmers to take the right decision in the right time is called Precision Agriculture, a system to guide farmers to take the right decision in the right time. It uses modern technologies, such as remote sensing by satellite or drone, geographic information systems (GIS), sensor for collect weather data, for collect useful information by crops. These data analysis of these data allow to perform effective and sustainable targeted treatments, more effective and more sustainable.

The analysis of extended land vegetative condition is often not easy because requires an overall vision of the crop. In this view, Pprecision farming system supports to increase a clear and correct perception of what has happened, what is happening and what will happen in the near future (Situational Awareness). The analysis of extended land vegetative condition is often not easy because requires an overall vision of the crop. Modern Remote Sensing (RM) technologies and Integrated Pest Management (IPM) can support operators to know and manage critical issues in crops, for example regarding nutritional deficiencies or pests attack. These support methods usually are based on maps, that can also be related to large areas and have a very high resolution for highlight critical areas of each crop.

Farmers can better known plant health status, phenological phases, water needs, nutritional deficiencies, and can act promptly before crop’s status get worse.

Decision Support System (DSS) is a way of precision farming practice for supporting farmer choice. Everyday farmers need to take crucial decisions in order to face daily routine activities or unexpected events but often they do not have the right information. For instance, farmers do not know the land characteristics of their farm therefore, they apply fertilizers and crop control substances uniformly over fields, at certain times during the year. This leads to over-application in some places and under-application in others.

So, farmers need instruments for monitoring the intra-field variability in crops, that help their decision about agricultural practices for saving input products (fertilizers, phytosanitary products, water), save money, and reduce environmental impacts in line with European standards. Precision farming support farmers in monitoring plant health status, phenological phases, water needs, nutritional deficiencies, so that theycan act promptly before crop’s status get worse. Decision Support System (DSS) is an instrument of precision farming for supporting farmer choice.

An example of DSS could be a software that integrates maps with vegetation indices calculated by remote sensing, weather sensors and other elements supporting technicians and agronomists in plots analysis to ensure quality production: spread of fertilizers and phytosanitary products and irrigation.

The output provided could be georeferenced maps, tables and statistical charts, giving scientific support to identify problems and needs in the crop and to verify effectiveness of the treatments.

[Visualization of insect traps in the fields]

One of the most useful DSS are forecast models available in specific software/application for agricultural management. For example there are forecast model that provide information about the probability (risk) of generation and diffusion of pests in crops. This alert is generated by an algorithm based on weather conditions in the area, collected with weather station installed in the fields. An example of models could be the one about “Olive fruit fly” (Bactrocera oleae), an insect that due heavy losses of olive and worst quality of olive oil. Another example is the “tobacco blight” (“Peronospora tabacina)” model for tobacco, for advices about the diffusion of this fungi that damage tobacco leaf. Probabilities of pests generation are different in each area, depending on specific micro-climatic conditions. Thanks to these models, farmer can treat crops before pests attack the plants and damage becomes visible, reducing product losses and increasing quality. Other useful forecast model are the one about phenological development of plants and the one about water balance for advise about irrigation. Forecast models allow operators to predict a problem, a deficiency in the crop, and to act promptly.

[Forecast model for preventing olive fruit fly diffusion]

Velia Sartoretti from Agricolus

Visa, Microsoft and IBM are some of the largest companies in search of Blockchain developers. This technology is bringing great changes caused by stronger needs of control of every stage of the production, processing, distribution and needs of information about the quality and the deeper characteristics of a product.

The Blockchain is no more simply linked to the use of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, it is going to have a more pervasive impact on our lives. People is starting to use it at home, to better manage domotics applications and the big energy companies are starting to use it for a better control on energy consumption billing.

At the same time, in the agrifood sector the Blockchain could be a great opportunity for manufacturers and consumers to create new ways to set differentiation policies and to better understand what stands behind a product. But first of all, when we refer to the Blockchain, what are we talking about? How does it work?

Blockchain: what is it and how does it work? In brief, a Blockchain is a system of interconnected nodes, considered transparent and incorruptible thanks to its decentralised and distributed nature. Transparent because all of the activities within it are public and are periodically registered on all of the interconnected nodes in the system. Each group of information recorded corresponds to one block.

These blocks are distributed and shared between all of the nodes in the network, as if linked by a chain. That is why the system is considered incorruptible: to manipulate the information contained within it, you would have to break into every single node in the network and we are talking about hundreds of millions, if not billions of devices.

The Blockchain applied to consumer goods Technology related to the Internet of Things, which allows an object to be connected to the Internet to obtain information or exert control, forms the basis by which a physical product can be connected to the Blockchain. Below is a description of one of the trace formulas developed by 1trueid for the agrifoodsector: the NFC tag.

How does 1trueid’s NFC tag work? The tag is a chip that is applied to the object to be monitored or “read” and is associated with a serial number that uniquely identifies the object. Once the tag on the product has been scanned, the contents of the tag and its information can be decrypted and read using 1trueid’s application or web app, providing an unequivocal way to assess the authenticity of the product.

Manufacturer and consumer benefits The chip provides different information depending on how it has been registered in the application and the type of access. The manufacturer can access all of the information about the product, processes and distribution (with relative control of the grey markets). However, consumers can access information such as features, photos, videos, etc. to which they attach greater importance, making it possible to assess the authenticity and quality of the product. In the event of a breakdown in communication between the chip and the device, or if the product is not equipped with a chip, it would be classed as a counterfeit product and not corresponding to that declared on the label.

Direct benefits for marketing When a user scans the tag on the product, the marketing department can obtain information such as their name, surname, email address, sex, age and geographic location at the time the tag was scanned.

In addition, the user can declare ownership of a product on the application, with the option to share the information on social media. In marketing terms, this takes the consumer experience beyond the actual moment of product consumption, integrating marketing activities performed previously, or rather the process by which the customer reached the purchasing decision.

In addition, given the close link between object and owner, the contents read from the tag can be customised with the name of the purchaser and other products that could potentially meet their needs can be proposed, applying cross-selling and up-selling techniques.

[1TrueID tracking solutions]

The wide variety of agrifood products and application of the Blockchain, make it possible to exploit marketing levers that focus on the intrinsic features of the product associated with the raw material, territory and craftsmanship, rather than levers based mainly on price policies.

In addition to marketing-related issues, the application of tags connected to the Blockchain makes it possible to resolve issues connected with the observance of quality and health standards. For example, small producers of wheat and pasta in Italy have had to address the problem posed by the use of glyphosate on wheat imported from other countries. In the American meat market, a portal has been developed that uses the Blockchain to trace the origin of turkeys, preventing health issues for intensive farms, but above all raising the profile of the smallest producers that are given the opportunity to differentiate their product.

In Japan, to solve an issue raised by the overpopulation of wild animals that caused considerable damage to small local communities, it was decided, together with the Ministry for Agriculture, to use the Blockchain system to monitor the health standards of game meat. They have simultaneously transformed a threat to the local economy into an asset.

There is only room for imagination... Adopting this technology in the agrifood sector has so many benefits that it is difficult to list them all in such a small space. However, it is clear that the Blockchain can help companies achieve greater efficiency, by saving resources thanks to greater process control, and greater effectiveness, through the ability to exploit the qualities of the product and its origins as a lever for differentiation.

Moreover, we should remember that these advantages will have the greatest impact particularly on smaller manufacturers and agrifood SMEs. Their use of the Blockchain through NFC tags and other applications will grant them the possibility to better manage every stage of production, processing and distribution and expecially to exploit premiums based just on the kind of the product, its characteristics and the other limitless factors that contributed to get that result of production. Besides logistics benefits and the correlated efficiencies, this technology will lead to a progressive decrease of the value of price and brand marketing strategies as factors of differentiation.

Wineries, olive oil producers, cheesemakers, farmers and agrifood entrepreneurs should take this opportunity: thanks to the integration between online and offline spheres, it could be the best way to amplify the value of territory, the value of agrifood variety and above all, the value of work.

Tommaso Cattivelli

Founder of theCru Agency& agrifood marketing specialist at1trueid